Storming Heaven [067-jaa-dcomi]
  By: Dale Brown
  Synopsis:
  Abused by American soldiers during an
incarceration in Europe, Henri Cazaux has
waited years to exact revenge on the U.s. He
uses commercial aircraft to deploy bombs on
major U.s. airports--killing thousands,
halting air traffic, and creating national panic.
Rear Admiral Ian Hardcastle and X. Col.
Al Vincenti are ordered to reestablish security
in the skies.
  Berkley Pub Group
  ISBN: 0425147231
  Copyright 1994 by Dale F. Brown
  SUMMARY REPORT,
  Executive Committee on Terrorism,
National Security Council June 1979): ..
. The resolution of a serious dome tic incident
might conceivably be beyond the capabilities of
available civil police forces. The use of
specially trained and equipped military forces
might be necessary in order to restore order and preserve
human life.
  .. . The FBI and other civil authorities have
a substantial capacity to deal with terrorism
situations, and the use of military force would be necessary
only in extreme cases of highly
sophisticated, paramilitary terrorism operations
in the United States.
  U.s. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION,
Federal Aviation Administration Order
7210.3Knowledge, 16 September 1993, para
.6-ab(4) an para .6-ea The air traffic
manager shall take whatever steps or necessary to ensure that
the Presidential flight, airplanes,
helicopters, and entourage are given priority
... Honor any request of the pilot concerning
movement of the Presidential aircraft if it can be
fulfilled in accordance with existing control
procedures .. .
  WALL STREET JOURNAL, 2 December
1993: .. . In a bizarre case of mayhem and
apparent market manipulation, Mr. Ramiro
Helm eye [of Caracas, Venezuela is charged
with heading a group that carrie out a flurry of
terrorist bombings in order to profit from the resulting
decline in the price of Venezuelan stocks and
publicly traded government debt ..
  .. . Some speculate that Mr. Helmeyer and his
alleged confederates might have been political
terrorists, who engaged in market speculation in
order to finance their activities .. .
  WASHINGTON TELECOM NEWS via
Phillips Publishing, December 3, 1993:
Acquisition officials from the Department of
Justice's Immigration and Naturalization
Service (Ins) and NASA are briefing
potential private-sector telecommunications
and information services partners in separate meetings
.. . The partners are being asked to provide
ultrasophisticated telecommunications and information
services networks for politically sensitive
missions mandated by the Clinton administration.
  INS was told by the White House that it would
support a Nothing is too high for the daring of
mortals: "sweeping" antiterrorist strategy
storm heaven itself in our folly.
  throughout the federal governmement .. . that could help
identify "potentially dangerous" foreign
--Horace immigrants .. .
  CBS NEWS" "60 MINUTES," 26
December 1993 (reprinted with permission from
Burrelle's Information Services)--.. . It's
called GPS--GLOBAL positioning system: 24
orbiting satellites launched by the Pentagon that
transmit mapping and targeting information with an
accuracy never before known. It's free for anyone
to use, and the scariest use would be in what the military
calls the "poor man's cruise missile," which
could enable any Third World nation, any madman,
any terrorist, to send a missile right down the
smokestack of the Pentagon .. .
  Prologue.
  What you're about to see," the talk-show host
began, "is a videotape of what is a historic
but tragic occurrence--the last time since World War
Two that territory of the United States of
America has been attacked by a foreign power.
Our guest today says this can and will happen again, and he
should know. You will see a videotape log of the
control room of an American drug-interdiction
station, located just off the east coast of Florida.
Roll the tape."
  The studio audience was deathly silent as the
monitors came to life.
  "Attention, all platform personnel, this is the
command center.
  We have received notification that the aerostat radar
unit on Grand Bahama Island has just come under
attack and has been destroyed by hostile
aircraft. I am placing this platform on yellow
alert. Clear the flight deck and prepare for
aircraft launch and recovery. Off-duty crew
report to emergency stations." There were about ten people in a
large room of computer consoles and radar screens,
a room resembling a smaller version of Mission
Control at the Johnson Space Center in
Houston. Men and women were on their feet,
expressions of confusion and fear visible on their
faces. "Take your seats and watch your sectors,
was an officer was shouting, his voice visibly shaking.
  He was obviously the senior officer, returning
to a console slightly raised above the others.
  "Get your life jackets on but continue
monitoring your sectors. Do it!
  was Technicians quickly moved back to their
consoles, working with quiet efficiency, but the tension in
the command center was obvious.
  "Sundstrand-351, acknowledge," came the
voice of one of the female controllers. "You are
exiting the entry corridor and approaching
restricted airspace. Turn left to heading
three-five-zero immediately."
  "Twenty-one, your target is at eleven o'clock,
nine miles. You are cleared to engage. Suggest
left turns to evade. Seagull One is at your
four o'clock, five miles, on auto intercept."
  "Mike, Homestead is launching alert fighters
in support. We've got one F-16
designation Trap-01, thirty miles out and
closing at Mach one point two.
  "Damn it, was the senior officer could be heard
saying, "keep making warning calls. Tell him
he's about to be blown out of the sky."
  "Michael .. . ?" The senior officer's head
jerked toward the speaker.
  "Tell twenty-one to intercept and identify that
bastard," the officer named Michael responded
quickly, as if startled into answering.
  "Tell the F-16 to break off the
attack and stand by. "A few seconds later, they
heard a loud, sharp boom. Heads visibly
rippled across the command center at the sound. "I want
a standard intercept, light signals, and warning
flares. Get on his ass, get a light in his
cockpit, but don't attack until he sees your
FOLLOW ME lights. Is that clear? Get beside
him, twenty-one. Close to gun range.
  Try a warning shot .. ."
  "Warning shots are for losers," the guest
interjected.
  "I don't understand that, Admiral," the host said.
"You've got to be absolutely, positively
sure. Can you do that from a radar scope?"
  "If you break the law, if you violate
restricted airspace, you should suffer the consequences
the guest responded.
  "Shoot first, ask questions later, eh,
Admiral?" the host asked.
  "It would have saved lives in this case."
  "In another, it may have wasted innocent
lives."
  "I don't buy the argument that we should be prepared
to let a hundred guilty persons go so that we
make sure one innocent life is saved,"
the guest said The fact is, the innocent rarely are
involved--we just end up letting the guilty go.
It's time we stop this insanity." No one replied,
but heads in the audience were nodding in agreement.
  The host saw himself losing control of his audience
to his guest's arguments--this audience wasn't quite as
liberal as he wanted. He made a mental note
to speak with the producer about this. "let's continue with the
scene, shall we?" he said quickly, and the attention turned
back to the replay.
  "He's heading right for the platform--he's too
close .. . I've got a missile lock, was
another excited voice being transmitted over a
radio shouted. "Am I clear to engage his his
  "Hold your fire. Get beside him.
  Make him turn away."
  "He's going to hit. Am I clear to engage?
Am I clear to fire?"
  Suddenly, a different voice boomed over the
radio, a frantic, completely filled voice:
"Don't shoot, don't shoot, can you hear me,
don't kill me! his
  "Get him turned away from the platform,
Angel," the senior officer shouted.
  "Target turning right, heading
zero-four-zero, climbing .. .
  well clear of the platform." The audience could see
shoulders slumping in relief all across the control
center--in fact, the audience's shoulders relaxed
as well. But just a few moments later, they heard the
same female radar controller call out, "I've
got two targets bearing zero-seven-zero, ten
miles, altitude five hundred feet, speed
four hundred knots, closing on us fast. One more
up high, near the F-16." Then, a highpitched
male voice: "Mayday, mayday, mayday,
Trap-01, five miles southwest of the
Hammerhead One platform, I am under attack.
I am hit. I am hit."
  "Three planes .. . no, I count four, four
planes just appeared out of nowhere .. . coming at us at
high speed .. . no ID .. .
  attack profile." The videotape stopped
abruptly.
  The audience was stunned into silence.
  "Of course, we all remember what happened
then," retired U.s. Coast Guard Rear
Admiral Ian Hardcastle said to the studio
audience as Phil Donahue stepped to his mark
to make his guest introduction. "The platform
called Hammerhead One was hit by two cluster
bombs and two Argentinean-made antiship cruise
missiles. Forty-one men and women lost their
lives."
  "The videotape you just saw was taken inside the
command center of a U.s. Border Security Force
platform in the ocean between the Bahamas and
Florida, when it was attacked and destroyed
by exiled Cuban military
commander-turned-drug-smuggler Agusta Salazar a
few years ago," Phil Donahue said to the
camera by way of introduction. "My guest is no
stranger to danger, or to controversy. Ladies and
gentlemen, meet Admiral Ian Hardcastle,
former Coast Guard admiral, former commander of the
Seventh Coast Guard District in Miami, and
former commander of the U.s. Border Security
Force." The audience applauded politely, perhaps
cautiously. Ian Hardcastle's reputation had
definitely preceded him, and few persons could
really say they had a firm fix on his views or
motivations.
  "He's retired from twenty-seven years of
government service, but now he's waging a one-man
crusade to, as he said in the Op-Ed
page of the Times, "stop the hemorrhaging of
America's self-defense capability," was
Donahue continued. "You've seen him on the cover
of everything from Newsweek to People, shouting it from the
rooftops: America is in danger because we've led
ourselves to believe we're safe.
  The enemy is the shadowy, faceless world of
terrorists, something of which America has not had any
real experience. Are we really in dong
drug-interdiction guru who found his frontier
justice programs slip out of control? Your
calls and comments for our special guest, the
champion of America's pro-military hawks,
Ian Hardcastle. Stay with us--we'll be right
back."
  The audience followed the prompts from the stage
director and the overhead lights and dutifully
applauded.
  Donahue raced away to get his makeup touched
up, and Hardcastle was left alone on stage, so
he stood up to stretch.
  Hardcastle was tall and lean, with gray hair, a
bit longer than he wore it in his Coast Guard
days, swept gracefully back from his forehead.
  "Character lines" were deeply etched around his
narrow blue eyes, giving him a hawklike
visage to match his politics. He wore lightly
tinted glasses now, a concession to the hard years of a
former Marine Corps and Coast Guard officer
finally catching up with him.
  He wore a dark suit that looked a size or
two large for his thin, wiry frame, which only served
to accentuate his rather fanatical Captain Ahab-like
presence. He looked fearsome, but was a riveting
personality.
  Hardcastle, age sixty, was a retired Coast
Guard rear admiral.
  He was a Marine Corps officer during
Vietnam in a bomb-disposal unit, and
ultimately the stresses of the job and war turned
him to drug dependency. Upon finishing detox, his
commission was transferred to the Coast Guard, where he
began a long and distinguished career, rising to become
district commander of the busiest Coast Guard district
in the U.s. In 1990, because of his efforts,
Hardcastle was placed in operational co-command of a
joint Coast Guard-Customs Service border
securitystdrug-interdiction unit called the
U.s. Border Security Force, colloquially
known as the Hammerheads (after a
1920's-era Coast Guard alcohol-smuggling
interdiction unit). The then-Vice President of the
United States, Kevin Martindale, was one of
its biggest supporters.
  Although it was responsible for many successful
operations, the unit was under constant criticism for not
adequately doing anything to stop the flow or the
market for illegal drugs, and for its
military-style weapons, aircraft, and tactics
used against civilians.
  The Hammerheads were under intense pressure during
the Presidential campaign to curtail their
offense-oriented tactics, and were disbanded in 1993
under the new administration.
  Hardcastle retired in 1993, but became very
active on the lecture and political-pundit
circuit as a conservative political activist.
He associated himself with a large conservative
political action committee called the Project
2000 Task Force, which sought control of both the
White House and Congress by the year 2000. Although
his expertise was widely sought by many in Washington and
nationwide, and although he was considered an effective,
believable, and popular get tough speaker,
Hardcastle's views were often considered too
reactionary and extreme for political office or
for a major government appointment.
  His personal life was also considered too
politically distasteful.
  He successfully overcame a severe period of
post-traumatic shock and depression from his tours in
Vietnam, but that episode in his life, although far in
the past, was always dredged up by critics, especially
when Hardcastle was on one of his broadcast
tirades about an issue that he felt strongly about.
Others worried about his on-again off-again affair with
alcohol. He was divorced and had repeatedly lost
regular visitation rights to his minor children. More
interestingly, he had a few rather liberal ideas,
including legalization of some drugs and stricter gun
control, that made him unpopular with far-right
conservatives.
  A few moments later, Donahue came
trotting out, gave Hardcastle a thumbs-up,
took his microphone, and stepped briskly into the
audience, which had just been commanded to start applauding as
they rolled the intro. "We're back with Admiral
Ian Hardcastle, former commander of the
drug-interdiction unit called the Hammerheads,"
Donahue said when he got his cue.
  Some videotape started rolling on the monitors
as Donahue did a voice-oven-it showed a large
orange tilt-rotor aircraft with the words udds.
BORDER SECURITY FORCE and FOLLOW ME in
large letters on the side, firing missiles from
fuselage pods and dropping off heavily armed
assault officers onto a beach.
  "You all remember the Hammerheads, with their
high-tech aircraft and robot helicopters
fluttering over the beaches chasing smugglers--and I'm
sure you remember the 1992 incident that sparked the
controversy over the need for a unit like the
Hammerheads."
  Donahue all but smiled.
  Videotape was rolling on the monitors.
  A shot from a low-flying helicopter circling
overhead, showing a woman lying on the beach,
surrounded by two small children and by armed men in orange
flight suits. One of the large V-22
tilt-rotor aircraft was landed nearby, stirring
up great clouds of sand as the huge double rotors on
the plane's wing tips turned at idle speed.
  "This pregnant Mexican woman was killed
during her arrest, in full view of horrified
spectators and TV viewers. In their
short history, the Hammerheads are gone, disbanded,
certainly discredited.
  Admiral Hardcastle says the danger is still with
us--but not just from smugglers, but from terrorists. What do
you think?"
  Donahue's staff had already picked out a
prescreened audience member who was liberal,
highly opinionated, well-spoken, not afraid
to speak her mind, rather pretty--she would be perfect
to use coming out of commercial. "You'll stand, please,"
he said as he plucked her out of her seat and handed
over the microphone to her.
  "Mr. Hardcastle, it looked to me like you were out
there fighting a war," the woman from the audience said.
"You got fighters all over the sky, guys with
radar and guns and all--"
  "What's your question, ma'am?"
  Donahue briskly interrupted.
  "My question is, I don't see much security here
--just a lot of killin', like a bunch of
neo-Nazis in ugly orange suits ready
to bomb innocent people if they don't play by your
rules."
  "Ma'am, the Cuban drug smugglers under
Colonel Agusta Salazar used
civilian planes faking distress to distract us,
then bombed us with Cuban military aircraft,"
Hardcastle responded. "We didn't start this
fight--they did."
  "But you were supposed to be on guard for this type of
attack, weren't you, Admiral?" Donahue
needled. "With all due respect to your troops, it
seems like the attackers got you pretty easily."
  "We're sworn to play by the rules, Phil."
Hardcastle shrugged.
  "Our rules of engagement at the time said we could
fire only if fired upon. We knew there was a
threat of attack--retaliation for being so effective
--but Congress and the courts left us virtually
defenseless.
  "But let me point out something here," Hardcastle
said. "At the height of the Hammerheads' manning
deployment levels, we were able to conduct radar
surveillance of the entire southeast United States
and seal off all of Florida with rapid-response
aircraft.
  Drug use dropped significantly because
availability of drugs like cocaine and marijuana
plummeted--"
  "But gang violence and violent crime
increased because the pushers and users were fighting for whatever
product was on the street," Donahue added.
  "Phil, my mission was to get drugs off the
street by cutting off the supply lines
into America," Hardcastle insisted. "We did that.
  We were successful. No one can doubt that."
  "I think we're here because we all doubt,
Admiral," Donahue said, rolling his eyes.
  "What we have now are borders that are wide open
to invasion of all kinds," Hardcastle warned. "No
Border Security Force. A downsized Border
Patrol, Custom Service, and Coast Guard.
Back then, I could call on four Air National
Guard fighter units for help-now there is just one.
A hurricane took care of one unit--Congress
killed the other two. Ladies and gentlemen, we have
only twenty air defense units in all of
North America--yes, twenty. That's about forty
planes ready right now to stop an intruder."
  "What intruders are you talking about,
Admiral?" Donahue asked.
  "The Russians? The Chinese? The North
Koreans? Who wants to take on the United
States these days? Aren't you being just a bit .. .
  paranoid?"
  "Phil, we proved in Operation Desert Storm
and the fall of the Soviet Union that no nation can beat
the United States in a conventional military
conflict," Hardcastle said. "But we have no
defense whatsoever against unconventional conflicts.
Terrorists are better armed, more mobile, and more
sophisticated than ever. How do we respond to the
threat? We cut funding for defense, security, and
counterterrorist programs."
  "Admiral, I've got some real threats
to America's security to tell you about," Donahue
blasted back. "We've got forty million
Americans with no health insurance and over a
million homeless Americans--men, women
hundred Americans gunning each other down per
day, and we've got fifty thousand Americans
rotting in overcrowded prisons, getting no help
for their drug addictions and violent, dysfunctional
upbringing.
  In an era when we can't take care of the people living
on the street outside this building, here you are,
collecting a generous pension from the Coast Guard as
well as a very generous stipend from the conservative
Project 2000 Task Force, asking for funding
for programs to stop these shadowy bogeymen that
no one has heard of and that don't directly affect
anyone's lives."
  "Tell that to the fifteen thousand people working in the World
Trade Center back in 1993, or to the one
hundred thousand people affected by the 1994 terrorist
mortar attacks on Heathrow Airport,"
Hardcastle snapped. "Ladies and gentlemen,
America is becoming a target for terrorism because
we're allowing ourselves to become a target. And I'm
no longer just referring to a hijacker or kidnapper
or letter-bomber or gang warfare--I'm talking about
a campaign of terror against America, on the
scale that nations in Europe and the Middle East have
experienced for decades. We need a military--and
more importantly, an administration in the White
House--ready to deal with the dangers before they impact
the lives of millions of Americans."
  "You're talking about isolated incidents of
fanatics, or of terrorist attacks overseas between
factions that have been fighting for years," Donahue
said dismissively. "I don't see the connection."
  "Ladies and gentlemen, what if I told you that
there are over three thousand known terrorist groups
operating in the United States right now?"
Hardcastle interjected. "What if I
told you that over three hundred pounds of enriched
plutonium, enough for thirty nuclear weapons, is
reported as missing every year? The United States
had three long-range radar systems patrolling the
skies four years ago.
  Now we have one, and that one operates only forty
hours a week.
  We sent a hundred Patriot air defense
units to Saudi Arabia last year--any
guesses as to how many Patriots we have operating in
the United States?
  That's right, zero. The sky is filled with
unidentified aircraft."
  "Your point is .. . ?"
  "What I'm saying is that we as Americans
shouldn't allow our defenses to slide like this,"
Hardcastle said. "Everyone thinks, "There's no
threat, why spend the money to prevent something that may
never happen?" I'm telling you, based on all my
years in the field of border security and national
defense, that the threat exists.
  I'm not talking about Saddam Hussein invading
Washington--I'm talking about drug smugglers owning
American banks, arms merchants shipping
black-market weapons on our highways and
through our airspace, and government buildings open
to direct assault from relatively low-tech,
easily concealable terrorists. We don't have to put
up with it."
  "Yeah," a young college-age caller said. "I
heard you got fired because of alcoholism and because of
getting stressed-out from your time in Vietnam and
family problems and all. Frankly, old man,
I don't think you got what it takes to go around
tellin' the President how to run the military."
  There was a smattering of applause from the audience.
  "Making assumptions without all the facts is like
trying to shoot a gun without bullets, son,"
Hardcastle said. "First of all, it's true: I
suffered from a stress disorder brought on by my years in
Vietnam and by alcohol. I've never shied away
from admitting my faults. But I've also got almost
thirty years of military service, most of it
dealing with the difficulties this country faces when we
fail to enforce our sovereignty and protect our
borders. More importantly, I'm an
American, and I've got something to say about how our
country's being defended. I've got the facts and
I've got the experience, so I know what I'm
talking about. Question is, who's willing
to listen?"
  There was another round of applause, this time a little
louder than before.
  "Not me, man," the caller said. "I think you're
crazy," and he hung up.
  "And we'll be right back," Donahue said. The
music rose, and they cut away for another
commercial.
  Chico Municipal Airport, California
2108 hours, PT, August 1995 Get your
butts in gear," Henri Cazaux ordered, swinging
the AK-47 assault rifle on its sling from behind
his back, holding it high so everyone in the hangar
could clearly see it. He noisily jacked the
cocking lever back, allowing a cartridge to spin through
the air. The spinning brass glinting against the overhead
lights made heads jerk all around the hangar. The
sound of the cartridge hitting the polished concrete
floor seemed as loud as if he had pulled the
trigger. "Move, or I'll end your miserable
lives right now." Cazaux was perfectly capable of
threatening any one of the burly workers before him even
without the antiquated Soviet-made assault
rifle. Born in the Netherlands of French and
English parents who were residing in
Belgium, Cazaux was a former commando in the elite
First Para, the "Red Berets," of the Belgian
Army. During his youth he was in and out of trouble.
  At age fifteen he was caught smuggling drugs
into the U.s. Army barracks near Antwerp,
Belgium; he was incarcerated and abused by U.s.
Army soldiers for two days before his identity was
established and he was turned over to Belgian
authorities. At that time he was offered a choice
between a sentence of ten years in the Belgian Army
or ten years in prison.
  He enlisted. He had some expeditionary
assignments in Africa and Asia, but got in
trouble with the authorities, again, and spent two years
in a Belgian stockade until he was given a
dishonorable discharge then He entered the drug trade
in Germany, graduating to black market weapon
sales, mercenary activities, and terrorism.
  His shaved head, tanned to a deep leathery brown
by years in innumerable jungles, desert training
camps, and killing grounds, revealed scores of
scratches, dents, and blemishes that he hadn't
obviously been born with. The face was ruggedly
handsome, with bright, quick green eyes, a masculine,
often-broken nose, prominent cheekbones,
and a thin mouth that clamped down hard on the stub of a
cheroot. His baggy flight suit could not hide a
well-muscled body.
  Thick forearms and deeply callused hands
gripped the AK-47 as if it weighed only a
few ounces. He could have been a model for a
cologne or cigarette ad, except for the scars and
punctures, most never properly sutured or
dressed, that spoiled an otherwise photo-perfect
physique.
  The ex-Belgian Special Forces warrior
kept his body tense and his eyes darting to any face
that might dare to turn on him, but inwardly Cazaux
relaxed.
  Cazaux had been an infantry soldier for almost
all of his adult life.
  That was his profession, but his first love was flying.
Basic fixed and rotary-wing pilot training was
standard for most Belgian Special Forces
cadre, and Cazaux found he had a real
aptitude for it.
  Once out of the Special Forces and into the dark world
of the professional soldier, le mercenaire, he
became a pilot who could handle a gun and who knew
explosives, assault tactics, and the
other arcane arts of killing--a very valuable
commodity. Cazaux held an American Federal
Aviation Administration commercial pilot's
license, kept current as part of his "aboveground"
life, but he had thousands of hours in hundreds of
different aircraft, with landings all over the world that
would never see the inside of any pilot's logbook
or FAA computer database.
  The plane was almost loaded; they would be airborne
in less than a half-hour. The workers were just about
finished loading three narrow wooden pallets
aboard the rear cargo ramp of a
Czechoslovakian-made LET L-600
twin-turboprop transport. The L-600 was
one of the thousands of old aircraft bought on the open
market after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
when anyone could get an old Soviet military
transport, spare engines and parts, and even
experienced pilots for a song. This thirty-year-old
bird had been purchased from a Greek broker for
only five hundred thousand dollars, including a
spare Motor let engine, some other
miscellaneous spare parts, and even a ferry
pilot. The jet was in good condition--unlike the
ferry pilot, who was an old alcoholic
ex-Romanian Air Force colonel who flew this
beast from Prague to the United States. The
Romanian was overheard discussing his boss,
Cazaux, with some bar bimbo one night--a fatal
error in judgment.
  Henri Cazaux used the old fart and his new
American girlfriend as a moving target when he was
zeroing in a new sniper rifle several weeks
ago, then buried them both under five thousand tons of
gravel at a quarry near Oakland. Cazaux was
in the weapons business, and the first standing order for all
of his employees was strict secrecy.
  Henri Cazaux was the LET L's one and
only pilot, as well as its loadmaster, engineer,
crew chief, and security officer. Cazaux
entrusted the duties of copilot to a young
Cuban-trained Ethiopian pilot named Taddele
Korhonen, whom Cazaux called "the Stork,"
because of his very tall, thin body and his ability to sit still
for an incredible length of time. Cazaux had even
seen Korhonen standing on one leg once, like some
large dark swamp bird.
  Satisfied that the six loaders were sufficiently
cowed and working as hard as they could, Cazaux stepped
through the L's forward port doorway into the
cargo bay to inspect the goods. He had just a few
inches to squeeze through between the fuselage and the three
cargo pallets that occupied the bay--no fat boys
on this crew-and Cazaux had to be careful to step
over the thick canvas anchor straps securing each
pallet to the deck.
  The cargo hold smelled like gun oil and machined
metal, like sulfur and gunpowder, like terror and death
--and money, of course.
  Lots of money.
  The first pallet was just forward of the cargo ramp, and
it held the big prize, a cargo worth more than the
aircraft that carried them and probably all the
humans nearby--three "coffins" of Stinger
shoulder-fired heat-seeking anti-air missiles
stacked aboard, with nine cases to go. Nine
coffin-shaped cases each held two Stinger
missiles, preloaded inffdisposable fiberglass
launch tubes, and four cylindrical "bean can"
battery units. The other three cases held two
launcher gripstsight assemblies and four battery
units. The missiles had been stolen from a
National Guard unit in Tennessee shortly after the
unit returned from Desert Storm, and scattered in
various hiding places across the country while
the sales deals were cut.
  Cazaux had managed to stay well ahead of the
authorities as long as the missiles were hidden and
off the market. But as soon as the missiles came
out of hiding--which meant hiring loaders, truckers,
middlemen, guards, and bankers--the U.s.
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agency, were
  howling at his heels. Cazaux was certain there was
an informant in his operation, and he would ferret him or
her out soon.
  Killing the informant would be his pleasure.
  The next forward wooden pallet contained shipment
crates of various military field items,
ranging from fatigues and boots to U.s. Army
MRES (meals Ready-to-Eat, or more
popularly known as Meals Rejected by Everyone),
from medical supplies to tents, from power generators
to five-pound bundles of cash worth at least two
thousand dollars a bundle. When it came time
to bribe a customs official in Mexico, the
Bahamas, Bermuda, or at the cargo's destination
in Haiti, just one discreet toss, and the plane,
five pounds lighter, would be on its way within
moments. Each bundle of cash was worth about ten
times what a Haitian Customs officer
legitimately earned in a year, and Cazaux
rarely encountered anyone who would turn down a
bribe.
  The third pallet, secured closest to the front
of the cargo bay, held the really nasty stuff--almost
five thousand pounds of ammunition, high
explosives, detonators, claymore mines,
demolition gear, and primacord.
  Most of the stuff was stable and fairly safe to ship,
except for the stuff in the center of the pallet,
surrounded by Styrofoam shock absorbers--five
hundred pounds of pentaerythritol
tetranitrate, or P.e.t.n, the primary
component of detonating cord and used as a booster in
large demolition charges. For the flight, the
crystalline P.e.t.n was mixed with water to form
a gray sludge, then packed in cases surrounded
by wet sponges to keep it cool and protect it from
shock--it had a detonation temperature of only
350 degrees military explosives, almost as
bad as nitroglycerin--the friction of two
crystals rubbing against each other could be enough to set it
off.
  The explosives-laden pallet was placed toward
the front of the plane to keep it closer to the
L's center of pressure, where aerodynamic
forces were more balanced--no use whipping the pallet
around unnecessarily. Cazaux was not the best
pilot in the world, but he had not lost a shipment of
weapons yet in over ten years.
  Although his copilot, the Stork, always checked the
security of each hold down strap in his cargo bay
several times before and during each flight, Cazaux
himself triple-checked the security of all the straps
on the third pallet, then double-checked the security
of the middle pallet.
  A few moments later, one of the beefy loaders
came up to the entry hatch nearest Cazaux.
"All cargo loaded aboard as ordered," he
reported.
  Cazaux maneuvered his way aft to the third
pallet and inspected the Stinger coffins. He had
placed an almost invisible pencil line on each
lids had been opened--none had been touched.
Cazaux made a few tugs on the straps and
several hard pushes on the stacks of crates and
found them secure. He reached over to the second
pallet and extracted three packets of cash.
"Good job, gentlemen," Cazaux said. "Your work
here is finished. That buys your silence as
well as rewards you for your labor. See to it that
silence remains golden." The loader's eyes
flashed with delight when he saw the bundles, but they
just as quickly blinked in surprise when a large
switchblade stiletto suddenly appeared in
Cazaux's hand out of nowhere.
  Cazaux's eyes registered the loader's
surprised expression, and his handsome face smiled,
if only for a brief moment. Then he dropped the
packets into the loader's arms and drew the
stiletto's razor-sharp edge across one of the
packets. The loader's greedy hold on the money
packets allowed waves of one-hundred-dollar
bills to ooze out of the incision. "Count it,"
Cazaux said casually as he folded the
switchblade and instantly returned it to whatever
secret place he had drawn it from.
  "Not necessary, sir," the loader said breathlessly,
turning to leave.
  Cazaux looked a bit perturbed at first, then
shrugged and nodded as if silently acknowledging the
man's offhanded compliment.
  "Call on us anytime, sir."
  "I could use some men like you in my operation,"
Cazaux said to the back of the man's head.
"Join my team now, and you'll make that much cash, and
more, on every mission."
  The loaders stopped, looking at each other--
obviously none of them wanted to accept, but they were
afraid of the consequences of saying no to Henri
Cazaux. But one black man turned toward
Cazaux.
  "Yo, man, I'll take it, right here." The
other loaders, all white, looked relieved that the
lone black had left them.
  The black guy was big, with beefy shoulders and
arms and a broad, massive chest, but with a bit of a
roll of fat around his middle and a spread in his ass,
like a veteran truck driver, a played-out boxer,
or an ex-artillery loader turned couch potato.
His eyes were clear, with no hint of dullness from
drugs or too much alcohol, although the flabby
waist and chest said this guy downed at least a case of
beer a week.
  "Do you have a passport?" Cazaux asked him.
  "Uh-uh .. . Captain," the loader said in a
dark, cave-deep voice.
  "It will cost you one thousand dollars, in advance,"
Cazaux said.
  He extended his hands toward the bundles
of cash held by the head loader, motioning for the man
to toss him the money.
  "That ain't the deal," the head loader said. "We
split the money later." But Cazaux hefted the
AK-47--NOT aiming it at them, but the threat was
clean-and the loader counted out a thousand dollars in
one-hundred-American-dollar bills from the
sliced-open packet and handed it to the black man.
  "Work hard, and it will be returned to you with
substantial interest," Cazaux said, holding out his
hand.
  The black man scowled at Cazaux, clutching
the cash in his big hands.
  "I ain't paying you nuthin," man," he said.
"You got your own damned plane, man, you can get
me in."
  "Just stick the nigger in with the rest of the baggage,"
one of the other loaders suggested with a laugh.
  A stern glare from the Belgian mercenary silenced
the loader.
  "You will need a passport for some of our
destinations," Cazaux said, "and it costs a lot
to get a good document." He shrugged. "Part of the
price of doing business."
  The anger rising in the black man's chest
was enough to raise the air temperature in the hangar
several degrees.
  "Trust me," Cazaux said reassuringly.
  The guy finally relented, handing Cazaux the money
and hopping aboard the L-600. The others were
hustling toward the side hangar door as fast as they
could. They were sure the big black guy was going
to turn up dead in a very short period of time, like as
soon as he closed the hangar doors.
  "You are the one they called Krull?" Cazaux
asked the one remaining loader.
  "Yeah," the black man replied.
  "Is that your real name?"
  The man hesitated, but only for a second:
"Hell no, Captain.
  And I'll bet you ain't no captain, either."
  Cazaux knew the man's real name was jefferson
jones, that he was just paroled from a Florida state
penitentiary, serving three of seven years for armed
robbery, and that he had a common-law wife and two
kids. An arrest for dealing drugs, no conviction,
and an arrest for selling guns, again no conviction. A
small-time hood, dabbling in crime and so far not
demonstrating any real aptitude for it.
  Cazaux's sources described this one as
a good worker, good with a gun, more intelligent than most
foot soldiers, a quick temper when provoked but
otherwise quiet. "Good answer, my friend,"
Cazaux said.
  "I saw your dossier."
  "Say what?" Big eyes growing wide with
surprise.
  "Your records. I know you are telling the truth.
Lying to me is fatal, I assure you."
  "You're the boss," Krull said. "I ain't
lying to you."
  "Very well." Cazaux knew that jones had used
a variety of weapons in his years as an armed thug,
and Cazaux had chosen him, whether Krull knew it
or not, over all the other hirelings as a possible
recruit.
  "You begin work immediately. Open those hangar doors,
close them after we taxi clear, hop aboard, then
close this door like so." Cazaux showed him how
to close and latch the large rear cargo door, and
Krull left to see to the hangar door. He had
no trouble opening the manually operated steel doors,
and soon the warm California night air was seeping
into the hangar. Time to get moving.
  "Prepare to start engines," Cazaux
shouted forward to the Stork.
  "I want taxi clearance right now. Report our
position on the field as the Avgroup cargo
terminal, not this location. Let's go."
  He bent to make one last check of the cargo
straps before heading up to the cockpit.
  Aboard an Army UH-60 Assault
Helicopter That Same Time The image on the
nine-inch color monitor wavered as the helicopter
passed by some electrical transmission lines, but
the picture steadied as soon as they were clear. "I
didn't hear you that time, Marshal Lassen,"
Federal District Court judge joseph
Wyman, Eastern District of California, said.
  "Repeat what you just said."
  "Your Honor, I said that because Henri Cazaux
is extremely dangerous, I must be granted
extraordinary latitude for this capture," Chief
Deputy Marshal Timothy Lassen said into the
videophone, a suitcase helicopter seat across
from Lassen. Lassen, age forty-eight, was the
number-two man in charge of the Sacramento office
of the U.s. Marshals Service, Eastern
District of California. He was speaking on a
secure voicestvideostdata microwave
link to the federal courthouse in Sacramento while
speeding southward only one thousand feet above ground
toward Chico Municipal Airport. Lassen's
lean frame was now artificially beefed out with a thick
Kevlar body armor vest over a loose-fitting
black flight suit, recently purchased from a
mail-order catalog for this particular mission; a
black vest with the words udds.
  MARSHAL in green covered the bulletproof vest.
His boots were scuffed-out survivors of the Marshals
Service Academy Training Course at
Quantico, Virginia, and used since then only
for duck hunting. He wore a plain black
baseball cap backwards and a headset to speak on
the videophone over the roar of the helicopter's twin
turboshaft engines.
  Judge Wyman had been summoned to his desk
at midnight to issue an arrest and search warrant
for Lassen's operation. Even distorted by the scrambled
microwave linkup and the occasional interference, it was
obvious that the judge was not happy."
"Latitude" is one thing, Deputy," Wyman
said irritably, "but your warrant justification
reads like something out of the frontier West."
  "I think that's a slight exaggeration, Your
Honor."
  The videophone system was full duplex, like a
regular telephone, but it would not easily tolerate
interruptions--Lassen's interjection went unheard:
"I'll buy a no-knock and use of military
transport aircraft for the raid, Deputy, but the
gunship is out."
  "Your Honor .. . Your Honor, excuse
me," Lassen said, repeating himself to successfully
interrupt the judge, "Henri Cazaux is the
number-one fugitive on our most-wanted list, with
fifty-seven federal warrants issued for him
to date. He is an internationally known terrorist and
arms dealer. He's the biggest gunrunner in
southwestern Europe, his efficiency and ruthlessness
is putting the Italian Mafia to shame in southern
Europe, and now he's in the United States, where
he's been connected to several attacks against
military arsenals.
  He has stolen everything from Band-Aids to glide
bombs, and he knows how to use them all--he's
ex-Belgian Special Forces and an
accomplished pilot. He has the Marshals, the
FBI, a.t.f, and the state police outgunned in
every category. We have to use military air
just to even the odds."
  Judge Wyman shook his head at the
videophone unit's camera lens on his desk and
continued: "Use of deadly force? Use of military
aircraft and weapons? Dead or alive? What
is this, a vendetta? I will not sign a "dead or
alive" warrant, Deputy."
  "Your Honor, Cazaux is known to have killed
four federal officers this year," Lassen said. "He
hasn't used anything smaller than an M-16
  or AK-47 infantry rifle on any of his
victims, and one marshal was believed to be killed
by a direct hit by a forty-millimeter grenade, a
weapon used for punching holes in walls and
bunkers. We identified the dead agent by recovering
one of his fingers that had been blown nearly a hundred
yards away."
  It was the judge's turn to interrupt--Lassen
stopped talking when he saw Wyman talking, and the
judge's stern voice came through as soon as
Lassen stopped talking: "dis. . have to remind me of
any of that, Deputy," Wyman said, "and I'm very
familiar with an M206 grenade launcher and its
effects, thank you. I fully understand how dangerous
Henri Cazaux is. But the objective
of a warrant issued by this court is to grant legal
permission to arrest a fugitive suspect, not carry
out an assault--or an execution."
  "I assure you, Your Honor, my objective
is to capture Cazaux and bring him to trial,"
Lassen said. "But I cannot accomplish this mission
safely without substantial firepower. Cazaux
is a killer, Your Honor.
  He has demonstrated that he will fight it out,
kill any lawenforcement agents nearby, use the
weapons he smuggles for his own defense, even
kill his own workers, rather than be captured.
  He's like a raccoon caught in a trap, Your
Honor, except he won't hesitate to chew off
someone else's leg to escape. I need
extraordinary powers if I'm to try to apprehend
him. If I don't get them, I will not send my
men in."
  "Don't you give me ultimatums, Deputy
Lassen," Wyman said angrily.
  "I'm trying to emphasize how dangerous Henri
Cazaux is, Your Honor," Lassen continued
quickly. "I attached an FBI psychological
profile.
  Cazaux was imprisoned and abused
by GIS when he was a child, and he turned to violence
even-was
  "Say again, Deputy Lassen?" Wyman
interrupted. "I thought Cazaux had never been in
prison?"
  "As a minor, he was caught on a U.s.
Air Force cruise missile base in
Belgium, selling hashish to U.s. security
policemen," Lassen explained.
  "He was turned over to the Belgian
authorities, but not before being imprisoned and
repeatedly raped by the guards for two days. I
heard they even shoved nightsticks up him. And he
was only fifteen years old. He kills foreign
servicemen on sight, Judge--he always has.
  I think he'll target my SOG troops the
same--"
  "I understand what you're telling me, Deputy,"
Wyman interrupted, "but even though he may seem
like one, I want him brought to justice, not killed like
a rabid dog.
  Don't ask this court for the power of life and death,
then refuse to carry out your duties if you don't
get it. You want my signature on a warrant,
mister, you follow by my rules.
  "I'm deleting the "dead or alive" condition
--you will bring Cazaux and his men in alive, or you will
explain to me and the Attorney General of the United
States why you failed to do so, and I assure you,
Deputy, your career and where you spend the night--at
home, or in a federal prison cell--will hang
on your response. And you may use any military
aircraft to transport your agents and for observation,
but they may not approach closer than five hundred
meters from the suspects, and they may not use their
weapons unless fired upon by the suspects. Now, are
you going to abide by my orders, Deputy Lassen?"
  He had no choice. Wyman was the most
cold-blooded of the federal judges and magistrates
in the District, and if he had objections to any
aspect of a warrant, it was best not to argue. The
way was still clear to do whatever it might take to put
Cazaux out of business, but an unwarranted death
would mean the end of Lassen's career. It might be
worth a twenty-year career for the chance to end
Cazaux's miserable life, but playing by the rules
was important to Timothy Lassen.
  Carrying a gun, a badge, and a federal warrant
made a man pretty big in some people's eyes, and it
was easy to start believing that justice was
whatever you chose to make it, especially with
sociopathic killers like Cazaux. Lassen was
determined not to let his Constitutionally mandated power
corrupt him. Lassen was also determined not to fuck
up his career at this point, no matter who they were
pursuing. Tall, with an athletically lean frame
and dark hair and brown eyes, Timothy Lassen
had been with the Marshals Service since 1970, and
had several assignments in both California and
Oregon. For eight of those years (from 1980
to 1988) he had served in the Special Operations
Group (Sog). He was the SOG deputy commander
from 1988 to 1990 and then reassigned to the
Sacramento office as Deputy U.s. Marshal
in 1991.
  "Yes, Your Honor," Lassen replied.
  "Good. I want Cazaux as bad as you do,
Lassen, but you've got to do this one by the book or the
circuit court will put us both out of business."
Wyman raised his right hand, and in the passenger
section of the Black Hawk helicopter, Lassen
did likewise. "Do you swear," Wyman
recited, "that all the information in these warrants are the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and do
you swear to abide by the regulations and
restrictions contained herein and execute these warrants
to the best of your ability?"
  I swear, Your Honor."
  Wyman signed three documents and handed them to an
assistant, who unclipped the pages and sent the
pages one by one into a fax machine connected to the
same secure communications link.
  Seconds later, the warrants appeared in the
plain-paper fax machine on board the Black
Hawk assault helicopter. A recent
Supreme Court decision ruled that the fared copy
of a warrant sent via a secure datalink was as
good as the original. "I'll be standing by here in case
you need me, Lassen. I'm with you all the way."
  "Thank you, Your Honor," Lassen said.
  "My clerk tells me that Judge Seymour
signed a series of warrants for a.t.f the same
time period," Wyman said. a.t.f, the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, a
division of the Department of the Treasury, was involved
with the regulation of restricted, high value goods such
as liquor and weapons. "Since I wasn't
briefed on their involvement, I assume you're not
working with a.t.f on this one."
  "I didn't know a.t.f was involved,
Your Honor," Lassen said.
  "We got the information that Cazaux had surfaced
only a few hours ago.
  Can you give me any details on the warrant,
sir? Is Agent Fortuna in charge?"
  "Your old friend," Wyman said with a wry smile--
the sarcasm in his voice came through loud and clear,
even via the wavering secure datalink. "I see
you have your Kevlar on--I think you'll need it, and not
just against Cazaux."
  "I'd better try to raise Fortuna on the
secure phone, then, Your Honor," Lassen said.
"Thanks again for your help."
  "I have a feeling the shooting is going to start long
before you encounter Cazaux," Wyman said, trying
to interject a bit of humor into what promised to be
a very humorless scene coming up. "Good luck."
  The encrypted datalink buzzed when Wyman
hung up, then beeped to indicate the channel was
autochecked for security and was clear.
  Lassen keyed in a user address key into the
transceiver's keypad, listened for the autocheck
tone again, and waited. Seconds later, he heard
a cryptic "Tiger One, go."
  Even on an ultrasecure microwave
datalink that was virtually untraceable and
eavesdrop-proof, Special Agent Russell
V. Fortuna still liked using his old Vietnam
Recondo code name. "This is Sweeper One, on
channel seventeen-bravo," Lassen replied.
Although he disliked using all this code crap, he
knew Fortuna would not respond, especially during
an operation, unless he used his code name and confirmed
the secure datalink channel in use. "What's
your location and status, Russ? Over."
  There was a slight pause, and Lassen could
easily envision Fortuna, dressed in his Star Wars
semirigid body armor that made him look like an
Imperial storm trooper from the movie, shaking his
armored head in complete exasperation. "Lassen,
what the fuck do you want? was Fortuna finally said.
"You may have just blown this operation. You ever hear of
communications security ?"
  "We're on a secure datalink, Russ.
Get off it. I need to know your status. Are you
moving against Fugitive Number One? Over."
  "Jesus, Lassen, why don't you just get on the
PA and tell the creeps we're coming?" There was
another short pause, then: "Yeah, we're ten
minutes out. We zeroed in on his operation at
Chico, and we're moving in. Since we didn't
have time to coordinate this strike, do me a favor,
get hold of the administrator of the airport and the
sheriff's department, and cordon off the airport.
Stay on the outside until I give you the word.
Over."
  "Russ, we've got word that Cazaux has got
heavy weapons and high explosives at his location,
enough to take out half the airport.
  SOG is about fifteen minutes out, and we've
got some Apaches and Black Hawk assault
helicopters from the California Air National
Guard with us. We'll back you up."
  "Assault helicopters? Are you nuts?"
Fortuna asked. "Cazaux will start shooting the
minute he hears one of those things overhead.
  Keep them away from the airport. Who the hell
gave you a warrant authorizing attack
helicopters, anyway? Are you going to seal off the
airport for me or not?"
  "Affirmative, Russ, I'll take care of
that," Lassen said, pointing to the VHF radio and
motioning for the chief of the Special Operations Group,
Deputy Marshal Kelly Peltier, to make the
initial calls for him.
  SOG was the Marshals Service's assault and
special weapons team, organized to capture the
most violent and heavily armed fugitives.
  "But hold off on your operation until we get
closer, and brief me on your plan of attack."
  "I don't have time for that shit," Fortuna
snapped. "You can monitor our tactical
frequency if you want, but do not, I repeat, do not
overfly the airport. We might mistake your
choppers as one of Cazaux's escorts and take a
shot at it."
  Special Agent Fortuna was director of the
southeast district of the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms. Ex-Marine Corps,
all-around weapons expert, and a human dynamo, as
gung-ho as any man in the Treasury Department,
Fortuna was an expert in small unit assault
tactics--at least in his own mind. He relied on
the elements of shock and surprise to overwhelm the
bad guys. However, the shock and devastation of his
attacks, in Lassen's view, made up for a lot
of sloppy investigative work.judges gave him
warrants regularly because he got results.
Lassen liked to gather his deputies, surround a
suspect, and wait him out. Although these
standoffs took time and manpower, this substantially
reduced the risk to his deputies. Fortuna liked
to form a strike team, plan an assault, and
attack head-on at night with heavy weapons
blazing. The result was usually a lot of wounded
agents and dead suspects, but the shooting was over
long before the TV camera crews arrived. Because of this
fundamental difference in tactical style, the two
organizations sometimes moved without coordinating with the
other.
  "Jesus, Fortuna's gonna play Rambo
again," Lassen said on the helicopter's intercom so
the pilots and the rest of the crew could hear. "Paul,
you better plan on setting down on the far side
of the runway opposite the action, off-loading the
crew, then evacuating the area," Lassen told his
pilot. To his SOG strike team leader he said,
"Kel, get on the phone to the chief of the Oakland
Flight Service Station and have them issue an
emergency airspace restriction in a five-mile
radius of the airport. I'll be the point of
contact in charge of placing the restriction. If you
hit any delays after nine minutes from now, just get
on VHF GUARD on 121.5 and U.h.f
GUARD on 243.0 and broadcast the warning
in the blind for all aircraft to avoid the airport.
Christ, what a mess."
  "The TV stations will pick up the news if I
broadcast on the GUARD channel, Tim."
  "I'm not worried about that--I'm worried about
Fortuna taking a shot at us or at some commercial
job who wants to land," Lassen said.
  "Do it."
  Chico Municipal Airport, California
That Same Time "Chico ground, LET Victor
Mike Two-juliett, ready to taxi from Avgroup
Airport Services with information uniform,"
Cazaux radioed.
  "LET Victor Mike Two Juliett,
Chico ground, taxi to runway one-three left
via alpha taxiway, wind one-eight-zero at
one-three," came the response from ground control.
  "LET Two-juliett," Cazaux replied.
  Russ Fortuna, sitting in the front of the
"six-pack" pickup truck, lowered the handheld
VHF radio and turned to his deputy strike
leader beside him. "Right on time and right where he's
supposed to be," he said. The six-passenger
pickup truck they were riding in cut a corner and
sped toward an open gate guarded by an
a.t.f agent and a sheriff's deputy. The three
a.t.f agents sitting in the back of the truck
clattered as their armored shoulders bumped against each
other. The semirigid Kevlar armor they wore
resembled a hockey player's pads, with thick
face, neck, arm, torso, groin, and leg
plates that would protect them against heavy
machine-gun fire with reasonable mobility. Their
helmets were one-piece bulletproof Kevlar
shells with built-in microphones, headphones, and
flip-up night-vision goggles, powered by a lithium
battery pack mounted on the back of the helmet.
They wore thickly padded ALICE vests over the
armor, with spare ammunition magazines,
flash-bang grenades, and .45 caliber
automatic pistols in black nylon holsters.
The agents carried no handcuffs or restraining
devices--this was a hard-target assault all the
way. If the suspects weren't restrained by the
sight of pistols and assault rifles, they were going
to be suppressed by a bullet in the head. Their main
weapons were Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine
guns with flash suppressors; the driver of the
truck would man a .50 caliber heavy sniper
rifle with a 30x nightscope that was big enough
to destroy an aircraft engine with one shot.
  Once through the gate, the truck headed along rows
of small aircraft hangars on their right. A
high-wing Cessna was taxiing toward them, fla
turned on emergency flashers to warn the plane's
pilot to stay away.
  Another truck, an eight-passenger van with
smoked windows, was directly behind them, loaded with
six more a.t.f agents in full ballistic armor
and combat gear. This van, and another one heading across
the airport to encircle Cazaux, each carried
six fully equipped agents.
  "Give me a rundown of the location."
  The deputy strike leader opened an airport
guide to the paperclipped pages. "Avgroup
Airport Services is the large parking area
southeast of the control tower, closest to the departure
end of runway thirteen left," he replied.
"One large hangar east, one more southeast, one more
north. Pretty open otherwise. From the northwest
gate, we'll have to come in from the north between this hangar
and the tower. That way we can cut off his taxi route."
  "But he could use the parallel runway instead of the
longer one, right?
  We should cover both runways."
  "Runway thirteen right is only three thousand
feet," the deputy strike leader said. "The LET
L-600 needs a good five thousand feet even for a
best-angle takeoff, and more if Cazaux's got it
loaded down with fuel and cargo. In addition, he's
got a strong crosswind-that'll cut down his
takeoff capability even more. I think he'll have
to take the long runway."
  "All the same, I want unit three to go around
east of the tower, down taxiway delta, and take up
a position on the east side of runway one-three
right in this intersection," Fortuna said. "That way he
can cover the departure end of runway thirteen right and
block the long runway if we need to."
  "That'll only leave two units on
Cazaux," the deputy strike leader said. "The
airport's pretty big--if he rabbits, we
might lose him. If they got choppers, we might
want to bring the Marshals in on this after all."
  "It's too late to bring them in now," Fortuna
decided. "Once we get Cazaux's plane
stopped, we'll have the Marshals move in, but I
want to move into position before anyone else appears
in the line of fire."
  The deputy strike leader got on the
tactical radio to issue his instructions.
  The intersection up ahead near the control tower
appeared deserted, with no aircraft or vehicle
movement at all. Floodlights were on around and
inside the Avgroup Aviation Services hangar.
  Cazaux's plane was just visible, taxiing away
from the front of the hangar. Fortuna clicked on his
radio: "I've got the plane in sight.
  I'm moving in."
  "Unit one, this is two," the driver in
Fortuna's van radioed.
  "I've got five individuals walking west
along the taxiway away from the Avgroup hangar.
Some of the people are definitely suspects.
  They're carrying packages, but I can't tell
what they might be. I don't see any weapons
or radios. I can take them with two of the security
team and position the others to flank the target and
block him from the west."
  "Do it," Fortuna radioed.
  Two a.t.f agents dismounted from the van and
silently trotted into position, taking cover near
some parked airplanes. The five men practically
walked right up to them, never noticing them or the van
just a few dozen yards in front of them in the
darkness. As soon as the driver of the van saw the
five men's hands go up--they were carrying small
bundles, and through their night-vision goggles they could
clearly see they were bundles of cash--the van sped
forward to take up its position to surround
Cazaux's plane.
  "Drop those packages," one of the a.t.f
agents shouted. "Now!"
  The bundles of money spilled from their hands and
hit the ground--and then the whole world seemed to erupt
in a flash of light and a huge ear-shattering
explosion.
  "I told them to count the money," Henri
Cazaux mused as he put the tiny remote
detonator transmitter in his flight bag beside his
seat.
  Off in the distance, they could see a truck burning
brightly alongside the Avgroup Aviation Services
hangar. Kbbrull, squatting between the pilots'
seats to watch the takeoff, stared out the forward
windscreen in horror. "Joining my outfit is
looking like a better idea all the time, isn't it,
Mr. Krull?"
  "No shit .. . Captain," he responded.
The Stork grinned, showing the newcomer his
few remaining tobacco-stained teeth.
  Cazaux turned off the telescopic
nightscope he had been using to monitor the
a.t.f agents' approach, then handed it
to Krull, who placed it carefully into a padded
case. "I never did care for them white boys
anyway. Fuck "em."
  "You work hard and keep your mouth shut, Mr.
Krull," Cazaux said, shoving the throttles
forward and picking up speed along the north terminal
buildings, "and we will enjoy a long and profitable
relationship. I don't care what color your skin
is. Cross me, inform on me, or speak to anyone
about my operation or myself, and you'll be crow food
too. That I promise."
  "I get the message."
  "Aircraft on taxiway bravo near the tower,
this is Chico ground, hold your position and
acknowledge. Orders from the sheriff's department.
  Say your call sign," the ground controller
radioed.
  "Checklists, Stork, checklists," Cazaux
shouted cross-cockpit.
  He reached across the cockpit and flipped on the
engine ignition switches--if the engines
faltered during takeoff, leaving the igniters on would
help to restart them quickly. "Mr. Kbbrull, your
job is to watch this indicator. When it hits
sixty, punch this button to start the stopwatch. You
will count down precisely twelve seconds and
give me a warning beginning five seconds before the
sweep hand reads twelve seconds, using the words
'ready, ready," then "now" in a ock reads
twelve seconds Do you d "What the hell for,
man?"
  "I told you, keep your mouth shut and pay
attention, Mr. K and you'll do fine in my
organization," Cazaux said. "Do you understand what
I just told you?"
  "Yeah, yeah, I got it."
  "Very good. This is an acceleration test, Mr.
Kbbrull. We have twelve seconds to go from
sixty knots to one-twenty. If we don't do it,
we won't take off. Simple enough."
  Then we better make it, man," Kbbrull
said, "because whoever gonna be too happy about us
blasting dynamite in their faces."
  "True enough. Oh--hit that button for me right
there, if y would.
  Kbbrull reached over to a small
aluminum box mounted a the glare shield above the
instrument panel, took a look at Cara y with the
checklists, and at the Stork, h with complete mirth
at him. Kbbrull hit the button .. .
  .. . and a ring of volcanoes appeared to erupt
all around them with huge thick geysers of fire
shooting into the sky, obscuring the buildings on the
east ramp near the control tower. One by one, wite
airplanes and crop dusters were sent spinning into the
air by explosions. The explosions were set in
precise patterns, causing across the airport as
SOON as the L 600 spot, the explosions would
cut off the taxiway and obscure them w fire and
smoke. "Jesus Christ, what in hell .. . ?"
  "It is so pitifully easy to set explosives
on airports in America Cazaux said "Offer
to wash a windshield or paint a few stripes on
the ground, and pilots in this country will let you do
anything you want around their planes. But I am
disappointed--only about half of the detonators are
going off. I think I'll have a talk with those erica;
dealers. They owe me a refund." Kbbrull
felt as if he was in some kind of hellish nightmare
--the airport was systematically being destroyed all
around them, and Henri Cazaux was chatting on
about busines matters as if the explosions were just the
twinkling of fireflies.
  K n saw one explosion erupt under the control
tower, but the dark and smoke obscured his view and he
couldn't see if the concrete an steel structure
hit the earth.
  "Rather like setting up dominoes in a row and watching
to see if the pattern completes itself, no?"
Cazaux asked Krull. "You cannot help but watch.
The disaster is magnetic."
  Sixty seconds ago, Special Agent
Russell Fortuna was in command of three trucks
filled with seventeen heavily armed a.t.f agents
--now, two trucks had disappeared in balloons of
fire, and his own truck was abandoned and they were taking
cover behind it. Like a freight train out of control, the
six agents were helpless as the columns of fire
erupted all around them. A small single-engine
Cessna with a Playboy bunny painted on the
tail disappeared in a flash of light and an
ear-splitting sound only twenty yards away,
shattering the windshield in the truck and blowing out two
tires. Two agents were dazed, one finding blood
oozing from a ruptured eardrum in one ear. All the
rest appeared unhurt--four out of a strike
team of eighteen. Aftermath of a typical Henri
Cazaux ambush.
  "Team two, check in .. . team two, check
in," Fortuna tried on the portable radio.
Nothing. "Team three .. ." He didn't try
team three anymore, because he saw those poor
bastards get blown away when the booby traps
Cazaux's thugs were carrying went up. "Damn it,
somebody answer me!"
  "Russ, this is Tim," Chief Deputy
Marshal Lassen radioed. "I've been
monitoring your frequency. What's your situation?"
  "The target booby-trapped this entire
airport," Fortuna replied.
  "No reply from my two support units."
He was not about to say on an open frequency,
scrambled or not, that both his assault trucks had
been blown sky-high. "Suspect is taxiing to the
northwest for takeoff on runway one-three left.
What's your position?"
  "We're five minutes out, Russ," Lassen
replied. "We'll try to block the runways."
  Lassen's three-helicopter SOG team was
less than five minutes out--they were close enough
to see the burning aircraft, like large
bonfires, dotting the darkness around the airport.
The runway lights, taxiway lights, and tower
rotating beacon were all out. The flight crew of the
Black Hawk had to lower night-vision goggles in
place to find the airport. The moving shape of the
large cargo plane was now visible, moving rapidly
down the inner taxiway. Only a few dozen yards
and Cazaux would be at the end of runway one-three
left, lined up for takeoff. "I want one
Black Hawk in the middle of one-three left,"
Lassen radioed to his other helicopters, "and the
Apache hovering at the southeast end to cover.
We'll fly overhead and take onethree right in
case he tries to use the shorter runway. I
want--" Suddenly a bright flash of light erupted
on the ground ahead of them, and a streak of light arced
out across the sky, heading right for them. Lassen's
Black Hawk banked hard left, away from the
second Black Hawk, which was flying along in
formation on their right. The streak disappeared immediately, and
Lassen was about to ask what it was when a brilliant
burst of light flashed off to their right. The second
helicopter was illuminated by an orange-blue
sheet of fire on its left side.
  "Mayday!
  Mayday! Mayday!" the pilot of the second
Black Hawk radioed.
  "Hunter Two has taken some ground fire.
One engine on fire, losing oil pressure.
We're going down!"
  "Hunter One, this is Wasp," the pilot of the
Apache attack helicopter radioed. "I have a
vehicle at the spot where that missile came from.
  Three men. They appear to have another
man-portable missile and are preparing to fire.
Request permission to engage."
  Lassen didn't hesitate--he had run this very
scenario in his head a dozen times since putting the
request for the AH-64 Apache helicopter into the
California Air National Guard. His warrant,
signed by judge Wyman, specifically said that he
could not use the Apache's weapons unless they were under
attack--well, they were definitely under attack.
  "Request granted, Wasp," Lassen radioed
immediately. "Clear to fire."
  He was about to ask his pilot where the Apache was,
but he found out himself a moment later as several bursts
of rocket fire flashed just a few yards away, the
strobe light-like flashes freezing the rotors of the
deadly Apache gunship. The Apache
launched at least two missiles, and both hit the
same spot on the ground ahead, creating a
mushroom of fire. Lassen saw a swirl of
light on the ground, jumping and looping and cartwheeling
in the air like a comet gone crazy--an unfired
Stinger or Redeye missile round cooking off, he
guessed.
  "Target suppressed, two secondary
explosions, target destroyed," the Apache pilot
reported.
  "Good shooting, Wasp," Lassen radioed.
"Take the end of runway one-three left, keep
the suspect aircraft in sight, and attempt
to block its taxi path."
  "Wasp copies." But a moment later, the
pilot came back: "Hunter, this is Wasp,
suspect aircraft is lined up on runway
onethree right, repeat, one-three right, and he
appears to be on his takeoff roll. Am I clear
to fire?"
  Lassen put his night-vision goggles back in
place and searched the airport, now less than a
mile away. Sure enough, Cazaux had decided
not to taxi all the way to the long runway--he was on
the short runway and already starting his takeoff
run. It would be impossible to block his path now.
But he could still stop him--the Apache gunship had a
0-millimeter cannon that could shred Cazaux's
plane in two seconds, plus at least two more
wire-guided TOW (tube-launched,
Optically-tracked, Wire-guided) missiles that
would rid the earth of Henri Cazaux once and for
all. One word from him, and Cazaux would be a flaming
hole in the earth.
  "Hunter, this is Wasp, am I clear
to engage? Over."
  Henri Cazaux had killed a handful of
a.t.f agents that night alone, plus killed or
injured his deputy marshals on the second
helicopter, plus any unlucky civilians who
were on that airport when Cazaux decided to destroy
it to cover his escape. Add all those souls to the
list of his victims in the past several years. And
those were only the ones Cazaux himself had killed that were
known to the Justice Department--he was undoubtedly
responsible for hundreds, perhaps thousands of other
deaths because of his gun-smuggling and terrorist
activities.
  Henri Cazaux desrued to die.
  Unfortunately, Chief Deputy
Marshal Timothy Lassen didn't have the legal
or moral authority to kill him. Would judge
Wyman or any other federal judge throw the book
at him for putting a TOW missile into Cazaux's
filthy hide? Probably not, Lassen decided .
  ..
  "Hunter, the target is reaching my max tracking
speed. I need authority to shoot. Am I clear
to engage?"
  .. . but his own conscience would prosecute him,
find him guilty of selling himself out, and sentence him
to a life of remorse and guilt for betraying his
badge, his sworn oath, and himself.
  "Negative," Lassen said on the radio. "Do
not engage, repeat, do not engage. Stay clear of the
suspect aircraft, tail him as long as you can,
report his position. Hunter out."
  Cazaux taxied the LET to the end of runway
13 Right, rapidly performing last-second
checklist items as he aligned himself with the runway
centerline. Then he stomped hard on the brakes and
held them.
  The Stork was intently watching the engine instruments
as Cazaux pushed the throttles up. The LET
rumbled and rattled like a freight train out of
control as the two sets of engine needles began
to move. They heard a few loud coughs and bangs from
the engines, .
  and out the corner of an eye Krull could see long
tongues of flame occasionally bursting from the exhausts
and lighting up the tarmac.
  "Attention aircraft on runway one-three
right, warning, shut down your engines immediately."
  The Stork yelled something and pointed to one of the
instruments, but Cazaux shook his head. Krull
saw several gauges with their needles in the red arcs,
but Cazaux was ignoring them all. It seemed
to take forever, but finally the power needle made it up
past 90 percent, and Cazaux released the
brakes. The Stork kept his hand on the throttles
to make sure they were full forward, jabbering away
unintelligibly about something. The engines still didn't
sound right, were obviously not putting out full power
yet.
  "Hey, Captain," Krull said, "this looks
bad."
  "Sixty knots .. . now!" Cazaux shouted.
Krull hit the stopwatch.
  "Just be quiet and give me a countdown."
  "Five seconds!" Krull shouted. It
looked as if the airspeed needle had barely
moved. "Eight seconds .. ." The needle was just
over ninety knots, bouncing back and forth wildly
in its case. "Ready, ready.. . now!"
  Cazaux did nothing but continue to watch the
instruments both hands on the yoke, feet dancing on
the rudder pedals, trying to keep the plane on the
centerline.
  "I said twelve seconds, Cazaux, twelve
seconds! We're only at one-ten.
  Aren't you going to abort the take off?"
  "Not likely," Cazaux said.
  He waited until the runway end-identifier
lights had flashed under the nose, then hauled back
on the control yoke with all his might. The nose of the
LET L-600 hung in the air precariously.
The Stork's eyes were wide with fear as the white
chevrons of the runway overrun area became visible
--and then the cargo plane lifted off. But it was as
if the Belgian mercenary wanted to commit
suicide, because he immediately pushed the control yoke
away from his body, forcing the nose of the LET down.
  "What the hell are you doin'?"
  "Shut up, goddammit! was Cazaux shouted.
"We lifted off the runway in ground
effect--we aren't at flying speed yet." His
eyes were glued to the airspeed and vertical-speed
indicators. Airspeed was pegged at one-ten, still
ten knots below flying speed. Krull could do nothing
but watch the trees at the departure end of the runway
get closer and closer by the second. A lighted
windsock whizzed by, the orange, cone-shaped
flag not far below eye level. They were still too low.
  "Pull up!" Krull shouted. "We're gonna
hit!"
  Cazaux watched, and in a few seconds the
airspeed indicator crept up to one-twenty and the
vertical speed indicator nudged upwards. As
soon as it did, Cazaux raised the landing-gear
handle.
  The cockpit occupants heard a loud
swiissssh! outside the windows as the tops of a stand
of trees were chewed apart by the propellers.
  Krull could see the lights of homes atop the
nearby hills getting larger and larger by the second.
But as soon as the red landing gear warning lights were out,
Krull felt pressure on the bottom of his
feet, the LET behaved more like an airplane and
less like a ballistic sausage, and the homes
disappeared safely under the nose--close enough
to rattle the windows, but there was no impact.
  "Jesus .. . man, I thought we were goners,"
Krull exhaled.
  "You either crazy or you got big brass balls.
What was all that bullshit about acceleration timing? I
thought you said you were gonna abort the damn takeoff."
  "Mr. Krull, there is only one thing worse
than dying in a massive fireball in Chico,
California, and not making the delivery as
promised," Cazaux said as he slowly,
incrementally raised the flaps, carefully watching the
airspeed to make sure it didn't decay, "and that
is surrendering to the police or to the military. I
will never surrender.
  They will have to take my bullet-riddled body
away before I will give up, and I will take as many with
me as possible before I go. If I'm awake I will
try to escape, because capture is worse than death
to me.
  I was in a prison once. It will never happen
again."
  "Well, you crazy motherfucker, you did it,"
Krull said with undisguised glee and relief.
"Those pricks ain't gonna catch us now."
  The Stork looked at Krull with wide,
white, disbelieving eyes, then began to laugh loud enough
to be heard over the thunder of the LET'S
turboprops. "What's this brother laughin' at?"
  "He's laughing because we're not out of danger yet,
Mr. Krull," Cazaux said. "If the
authorities want me as badly as I think they
do, they have one more card they can play."
  Southwest Air Defense Sector Operations
Command Center (Socc) March AFB,
Riverside, California The night crew had just
finished a grueling three-hour-long exercise in which
a flight of ten Sukhoi-25
  attack bombers from Mexico had tried
to penetrate the air defense screen around the
United States and bomb the Coast Guard base
at San Diego and the U.s. Customs base at
March Air Force Base so all drug smugglers
could enter the United States easier. They had
gotten that idea from a series of actual attacks
a group of Cuban terrorists had made a few
years back, when sophisticated drug cartels
used military weapons to protect their drug
shipments from American interdiction forces. That was good
for about a dozen different air defense scenarios
built into the computer system at the Southwest
Air Defense Sector.
  Lieutenant Colonel John Berrell, the
Senior Director on the floor that evening, made
the last few remarks in his shift exercise
critique sheet. Overall, it was a very good
exercise. His shift was young and inexperienced, but they
performed well. There were usually no instructors around
at night, so every console operator had to be on his
toes and be prepared to carry his or her load alone.
A few coordination items had been missed
by overzealous operators in one of the Weapons
Control Teams who thought they knew their procedures
down cold and didn't use their checklists. The
plastic-covered pages in the red folders before each
operator had been built over decades of
experience and covered every known contingency in the air
defense game.
  It was almost guaranteed to keep the operators out of
trouble when the fur started flying.
  His crew had accomplished the most important
aspect of the job: detect, track, and identify.
  Berrell clicked on his master intercom
button: "Ops to all stations, well done." No
use pointing out the ones that screwed up-they still had a
long night ahead of them, and he wanted
everyone's mind clear and sharp. "Run your
postexercise checklists and check your switches are
back in real-world mode. Repeat, check switches
back in real-world mode." Several years ago in
Europe, an American air defense unit had
been running a computer simulation in which a large
stream of Soviet bombers invaded West Germany.
The exercise was a success and the computer-generated
bad guys driven off--unfortunately, after the
exercise, one operator forgot to turn off the
simulation. An hour later, the "second wave" of
Soviet bombers "appeared" on radar, and the
panicked operator scrambled dozens of very real, very
expensive American, West German,
Belgian, Norwegian, and Danish fighters
against the phantom bombers before someone realized it was
not happening.
  Those were the good ol' days, Berrell thought. Before the
sweeping world political changes in 1991 and
1992, air defense units were the spearhead of
national defense and deterrence. Radar constantly
sweeping the horizon, young faces staring at green
cathode ray tube radar scopes, picking out the
enemy from within the friendly targets; determined, daring men
sitting by their planes ready to launch at a
moment's notice to track down and destroy any
intruder.
  Before 1992, before the collapse of the Soviet
bloc, the threat was deadly real. A Soviet
Backfire bomber that appeared on radar five
hundred miles off the coast was already in position
to launch a large AS-12 nuclear cruise
missile--one such missile could destroy
Washington, D.c or any major city on the
eastern seaboard.
  Now, in 1994, the Soviet Union was gone;
the Russian long range bomber threat was
nonexistent. The Russians were still flying their heavy
bombers, but now they were selling rides to wealthy
Westerners in mock bomb runs out in Nevada, for
God's sake! The air defense forces of the
United States had been cut down to only
eighteen locations across the contiguous United
States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto
Rico.
  With only two alert aircraft per location, that
meant a total of thirty-six aircraft were
defending approximately forty million cubic
miles of airspace. True, many countries,
including Russia, China, Iran, and
North Korea, still had bombers and cruise
missiles aimed at the United States, but the
real day-to-day threat had all but disappeared. Air
defense had all but gone away as a mission.
  America still had a need to protect and patrol
its borders and maintain the capability to hunt down
and identify intruders, but now the intruders were
terrorists, hijackers, criminals, drug
smugglers, and lawbreakers. In order to prove to the
world that the United States was not becoming lax about
national defense and readiness, it was important for
America to demonstrate its capability to patrol
its frontiers. The remaining air defense units
were clustered in the south and the southeast instead of the north
so that the fighters could better cover the Mexican and
Caribbean regions, where drug smugglers,
illegal alien movements, and fugitive flights
were clustered.
  Berrell was busy reviewing the postexercise
checklist cleanup and working on the after-action
critique when the deputy sector commander, Navy
Captain Francine Tellman, came over and
sat beside him. As part of NORAD, the North
American Air Defense Command, the individual
command, representing all the branches of the
U.s. military as well as the air defense
forces of Canada. Tellman, a twenty-year
Navy veteran of air traffic control and air
defense operations, was the Navy's representative
at the Southwest sector. The
fifty-two-year-old Navy veteran was not due
to come on duty for another three or four hours, but
it was typical of her to come in early when a big
exercise or some other unusual event was underway.
Divorced twice and currently unattached, the
sector was the big part of her life now. "Evening,
John," she said to Berrell. "How did the
Hammerheads-7 surge exercise go?"
  "It went fine, Francine. I need to schedule
George on WCT three for a refresher on
checklist discipline--he missed a couple
coordination calls. Other than that .. ." The phone
rang at Berrell's console--the flashing button
was the direct line between the sector and the chief of the
Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center.
  Oakland ARTCC, or Oakland Center, was one
of the busiest and most diverse air traffic
regions in the world, covering northern and central
California and Nevada. "Southwest Air
Defense Sector, Senior Director,
Lieutenant Colonel Berrell."
  "John, this is Mike Leahy," the deputy
director of Oakland Center replied. "I just
got a call from a Special Agent Fortuna of
a.t.f.
  They have a fugitive smuggling suspect that just
launched out of Chico Airport, and they're asking
for assistance. He's southwest-bound, not squawking.
His ID code is seven-delta-four-zero-four."
  "Sure, Mike," Berrell replied. "Stand
by one." Berrell put Leahy on hold and turned
to his SD tech, Master Sergeant Thomas
Bidwell. It was not unusual at all to get
calls like that from the FAA'-THAT'S what the hot line
was for--but to get it directly from the deputy
director of the Center was a bit unusual.
"Tom, Oakland Center has a recent fugitive
departure from Chico airport, ID number
seven-delta-four-zero-four. Zero in on him for
us. Don't make him a pending yet, just "Yes,
sir," Bidwell replied. He opened his
checklist to the proper page, logged the time of the
request in the correct block, and passed the
information to the Surveillance and Identification
sections--since this was a target already over
land, and the Sector Operations Command Center usually
only tracked targets penetrating the air defense
identification zones, Bidwell had to get his
technicians to break out the new target from the
hundreds of others on the scope and display it to each
section. On the phone, Berrell said, "Mike,
I got your slimeball on radar. Do you want
to make him a pending or just monitor him for you?"
  "Monitor him for now," Leahy said. "I
don't know what Treasury wants to do. You might
want to get your flyboys up out of bed and thinking about
heading toward their jets, though."
  "Is this an exercise, Mike?"
  was "Fraid not, Colonel," Leahy said. "The
pilot of this one is apparently some hotshot gun
smuggler. The suspect killed some a.t.f
agents at Chico a few minutes ago. He's
got several tons of explosives on board his
plane."
  Berrell rose out of his seat, pointed to an
extra phone for Tellman to listen in on the call,
and rang a small desk-clerk bell on top of his
console with a slap of his left hand. Serious shit was
going down.
  Technicians who were chatting and taking a
breather hurried to their stations and began scanning their
instruments. "What kind of plane is it, Mike?"
Berrell asked.
  "A Czechoslovakian LET L-600,"
Leahy replied after retrieving some notes.
"Twin-turboprop medium transport. Gross
weight about thirty thousand pounds, payload with full
fuel about six thousand."
  "What kind of explosives is he carrying?"
  "You name it," Leahy replied. "Ammunition,
demolition stuff, pyrotechnics. Suspect
might be connected with a National Guard armory heist
a few years ago. You heard of the name Henri
Cazaux before?"
  "Oh, shit," Berrell said, cursing under his
breath. Had the world heard about Carlos the jackal?
The IRA? Abu Nidal? "I understand,"
Berrell said. "Stand by one." Fuck, he thought, this
one's going to happen. A night intercept, over a
heavily populated area, with dangerous fugitives
and someone like Cazaux on board. Berrell never
wanted to see his sector's pilots or anyone on
the ground put in harm's way, but if there was a way
to gun down Henri Cazaux, Berrell wanted to do
it.
  Berrell turned to his SD technician, but
Bidwell had been listening in and was ready with the
information Berrell wanted: "Sir, I recommend
we put Fresno in battle stations," he said.
"I'm betting he'll make a run for Mexico,
but we'll have to wait and see. A cargo plane like
an L-600 has plenty of legs--he can go either
to Canada or Mexico. But I'll put my
money on Mexico."
  Sergeant Bidwell was seldom wrong--in
fact, Berrell couldn't recall when one of his
predictions was off the mark. Bidwell was always
tuned toward economizing their forces--predicting the
flight path of the target and putting the closest
interceptors on the target.
  But Berrell had a feeling that the Treasury
Department and a.t.f weren't going to care about
economy on this one. They wanted every throttle
jockey in the Air Force ready to jump the bastard
that killed their agents. Cazaux was supposed to be
as wily as he was psychotic, and Berrell didn't
want anyone in his sector to drop the ball if they
had a chance to catch him. "All the same, get
Kingsley and March suited up, too," Berrell
said. "I got a feeling Treasury or the
a.t.f won't want to let this guy go as long as
he's within radar range of the States.
  Let's get Northwest sector geared up in
case this turns out to be a relay marathon, too."
The Oakland Center phone rang again.
  "Senior Director Berrell."
  "We just got word from the Treasury Department,"
Leahy said.
  "They want you to intercept the target, accomplish
a covert shadow, and stand by for further instructions. It
sounds like Treasury is leaning toward an intercept
and force-down. Treasury would like to try to force him
away from populated areas if possible, and then
attempt to force him down at a less populated
airport or over water."
  "Mike, I have Captain Tellman, the
deputy sector commander, on the line. Repeat what
you just said." The FAA Center deputy repeated his
message. "Mike, we need to talk to justice and
Treasury right away and straighten those boys out,"
Tellman said, "because you know we don't have any
procedures for trying to force an aircraft down."
  "You can't fire some shots across his bow, crowd him
a little on one side to make him turn?"
  "You been watching too much TV. We have
no procedures for anything like that, and I wouldn't
want to free-lance something like that at night over
populated areas with a terrorist like Cazaux at the
controls of a plane full of explosives. The
potential for disaster is too high, especially
compared with the option of just letting him go and shadowing him.
But even if Air Combat Command approved a
maneuver like that, I don't think it would work. If the
target doesn't comply with visual, light, or
radio signals to follow or turn, we either shadow
him or shoot him down. Period. Our procedures
say we can't get any closer than searchlight
range of a known armed aircraft, and I'm sure as
hell not going to have them try to turn a plane loaded
with
  explosives--especially one piloted by an
operator like Cazaux."
  "All right, Captain, I hear you, was Leahy
said. "I'm just passing on this a.t.f agent's
requests. Obviously he doesn't know your
procedures, and he thinks you'll do whatever he
asks because of his dead agents. We'll have
to conference-call this one with Justice.
  What's your recommendation?"
  "I'd gladly give the order to blow this
scumbag out of the sky," Berrell said, "but your best
option is to have us do a covert shadow on the target,
find out where he goes. Does a.t.f know his
destination?"
  "I don't think so," Leahy replied. "He's
filed a VFRIEND flight plan to Mesa, Arizona,
but I don't think anyone expects him to land there.
  his
  "If he goes away from the mainland, then we can
talk about trying some heroics, if you want to catch
him so bad--and I think we'd all like to bring that
bastard down," Berrell suggested. "But if he
stays over U.s. soil, I recommend a
covert shadow. My fighters can follow him
easily, and with our night-vision gear, Cazaux
won't even know he's being tailed by an F-16
Fighting Falcon. Have a.t.f agents leapfrog
after us in jets or helicopters, land when he lands,
then nail him."
  "Stand by, Colonel, and I'll pass that along
to Treasury," Leahy said.
  The reply did not take long: "a.t.f
didn't see anything wrong with just putting a
missile into him," Leahy said, "but the Treasury
Department okayed the shadow. They'll be
putting the official request for support through
channels, but I'm authorized to request assistance
now."
  "You got it, Mike. I concur and agree. Stand
by." He turned to Captain Tellman, who had
been listening in on a companion phone at
Berrell's console. "What do you think,
Francine?"
  "Well, I'm with the covert ID and shadow also,"
the Navy captain replied. "What's his track?"
  Berrell checked the radar once again. "Still heading
southeast, away from San Francisco Class
B airspace," he said. "Class B
airspace," what was once called a Terminal
Control Area, was the highdensity air t
fifth-busiest airport in the United States.
The target was approaching the "upside-down wedding
cake" of the class B airspace, so technically
he was clear, but San Francisco International
averaged one landing and one departure every sixty
seconds all day long, and the target with fighters in
pursuit was definitely going to mess up air
traffic if he decided to veer back toward San
Francisco.
  "I agree with Sergeant Bidwell,
except I think we ought to move on the target as
soon as possible in case he heads for the Sierras
and we lose him," Tellman said. "Scramble
Fresno, put Kingsley at battle stations, and
suit up March. We should also get the alert
AWACS airborne from Tinker in case he tries
to hide in the mountains."
  The Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS
(airborne Warning and Communications System) was
a radar plane designed to look down and track
aircraft at all altitudes from long range--
if their target made it over the Sierra Nevada
Mountains before a fighter found it, ground-based
radars could lose it. "I'll get on the horn to the
commander."
  "Roger," Berrell said. He opened his
checklist binder, got out his grease pencil, then
turned to Sergeant Bidwell and said, "Okay,
Tom, make the target a Special-9, covert
ID and covert shadow."
  "Yes, sir," Bidwell said. He opened up
his own checklist, filled out the first few squares,
then announced over the building-wide intercom,
"Attention in the facility, attention in the
facility, target ID number
seven-delta-four-zero-four, designate a
Special-9, repeat, Special-9 covert
intercept, stand by for active alert scramble
Fresno.
  All duty controllers report to your stations.
All duty controllers report to your stations."
  "SD, this is the W.a.o, we have positive
contact on target ID
seven-delta-four-zero-four, confirm ID." The
W.a.o, or Weapons Assignment Officer, was
the overall supervisor of the section of the command center
that controlled the fighters from takeoff to landing and
monitored the entire intercept.
  "Target ID seven-delta-four-zero-four,
confirmed, W.a.o, you have the intercept."
  "Roger, SD, W.a.o has the
intercept," the senior Weapons Assignment
Officer replied. He made an entry in his
checklist log, then turned to the W.a.t, or
weapons assignment technician, seated next
to him.
  "Active alert scramble, Fresno, hold for
confirmation. Put WCT One on this one."
  "Copy, sir," the W.a.t replied. He
checked the status readout of the four Weapons
Control Teams (Wct) on his panel to be sure
the team the Assignment Officer wanted was free and
were ready to go to work.
  The WCT, consisting of one Weapons Director
and a Weapons Technician, would be the persons in
contact with the interceptor throughout its mission.
  WCT One was the most experienced of the young shift
on that night.
  The W.a.t clicked open his intercom after
seeing that all four WCTS were ready to go: "WCT
One, your target ID is
seven-delta-four-zero-four, a Special-9
covert intercept, repeat, Special-9 covert
intercept. Clear for active air scramble
Fresno."
  "WCT One copies all," the Weapons
Director of Control Team One responded.
"We have the intercept. All stations, this is WCT
One, stand by for active alert scramble Fresno,
target ID
  seven-deltafour-zero-four." The weapons
technician opened his checklist to the proper page,
cleared his throat, then ran his hand along a row of
switches guarded by clear plastic covers,
selected the one marked FRESNO, opened the
cover, and stopped. "Sir, I have Fresno,
active alert scramble. Ready."
  The Weapons Director checked to be sure that
the technician had his finger on the right button, then
tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the button,
and the communications technician pressed the button.
  Silently, he said, S077y to get you up like
this, boys, apologizing to the crews up in Fresno
for what he knew was going to be a rude awakening.
  Interceptor Alert Facility, 94th Fighter
Squadron (california Air National Guard)
Fresno Air Terminal, California The Navy
called it "channel fever," describing the
excitement of the last full night at sea before
pulling into port. Back in the days of the Strategic
Air Command, when most alert units changed over
on Thursdays, it was called "Woody
Wednesday," describing the almost unbearable
anticipation most crewmen felt about going home and
greeting the wife or girlfriend after seven days on
"round-the-clock alert. Whatever it was called, the
feeling was the same--you were so excited about getting off
alert and going home that you stayed up late, ate every
piece of food in sight, watched every movie
available, played poker all night, and
generally burned yourself out.
  Major Linda McKenzie, one of the two
F-1ca A.d.f (air Defense Fighter)
pilots on duty at Fresno Air Terminal in
central California, pushed herself away from the
all-night poker game table at ten-thirty
P.m. Channel fever was not too bad here at
Fresno--alert was only three days, and
families spent a lot of time with the crews at the
alert facility. The anticipation was still real,
however, and it usually manifested itself as an
all-night poker game, attended by every available
crewman at the facility. McKenzie had been
playing for the past five hours, and she had finally
gotten to the point where the need for sleep was numbing the
excitement of getting off alert. "I'm out," she
said after the last hand had finished. She steeled herself
for the simultaneous moans of disappointment from the
crew chiefs and security guards around the table,
gave everyone a tired and slightly irritated
smile, then reached out to scoop up the small pile
of coins and dollar bills on the table before her.
  "C'mon, Linda, one more hand," her flight
leader, Lieutenant Colonel Also "Rattler"
Vincenti, pleaded. But even he could not
stifle a yawn.
  Vincenti was a longtime veteran of air defense,
flying with the 194th Fighter Squadron "Black
Griffins" since 1978. He was a veteran command
pilot with over seven thousand hours" flying time,
all in tactical fighters.
  "Hey, I'm on a three-hop to Seattle in
thirteen hours. You get to sleep in. Don't
give me this bull." Like many Air National Guard
pilots, McKenzie was an airline pilot, a
first officer with American Airlines based out of
San Francisco. Because of monthly flight duty
day restrictions, the airlines gave each
Guardsman plenty of time to spend on UTA,
unit training assembly.
  "Is this the same person who threatened
to emasculate us all if we got up and left the
game last week?" one of the crew chiefs asked.
  "Little bit different if you're winning, isn't it,
Linda?"
  "Damn right it is," McKenzie said. "I'm
outta here. See you clowns in the morning." She
traded in coins for bills, stuffed her winning into her
left breast pocket, and headed for her quarters.
  Once there, Linda McKenzie got
undressed, taking the unusual risk of piling her
clothes and survival gear in a heap rather than laying
it out so she could easily find it all and dress
quickly.
  The last scramble exercise was early that morning,
which meant the odds of getting another one in the middle
of the night on the night before changeover were slim, so
she decided to risk a quick shower. No luxuriating
in the shower while on alert--get in, get clean,
and get out--but she was relaxed as she did so,
confident that there would be no interruptions. Her shower
took less than five minutes.
  Perfect timing.
  She heard voices in the hallway, then the door
next to hers open.
  Wrapping a towel around herself, she peeked out her
door just as Also Vincenti was closing his. "Also?
Come here a second." He stepped over to her, and
when he was in range she grasped the front of his
flight suit and pulled him into her room.
  "Linda, what in hell are you--" But he was
interrupted as she wrapped her arms around him and
gave him a kiss. He resisted at first, then
relented. That only spurred her on, and she held
him in her grasp even longer. She finally
released him, but began kissing his neck and unzipping
his flight suit. "Linda, it's late."
  "Nobody will hear us, Also. The game will go on
for another hour at least, and the crew chiefs all like
to sleep in front of the TV."
  "Linda, I'm not going to do anything with you," he
said. His flight suit zipper was down to the top of his
G-suit waistband, and she was reaching for the zippers
on the sides of the device. He was not helping her,
but he was not stopping her either. "Linda .. ."
  "You don't have to do anything," McKenzie said in
a whisper.
  "I'm doing the driving on this trip." She
stepped back from him, removed her towel, grasped
his hands, and brought them to her breasts.
  "Linda, this isn't a good idea."
  "I won't argue with that," McKenzie said with a
teasing smile, "but I should tell you, Colonel, that
you have more animal sex appeal in your little finger than
most guys half your age have in their entire
bodies."
  "That include your husband Carl?"
  "I'm referring to my husband Carl."
McKenzie laughed, running her hands inside his
flight suit against his chest.
  "You think just because I made a stupid mistake
by screwing you at SENTRY EAGLE in Klamath
Falls last summer that I think this is right or
justified? I'm not going to sleep with you, Linda."
Suddenly, the PA system blared, "For the alert
force, for the alert force, active air scramble,
active air scramble! All crews report to your
combat stations!" and an impossibly loud klaxon
split the late-night quiet.
  Vincenti was zipped and out the door in seconds,
leaving McKenzie cursing as she hurried to get
into her flight suit and G-suit.
  Also Vincenti had a fleeting vision of
McKenzie's flowing, wet red hair and big,
round, firm breasts float in his mind's eye as he
made the dash to his plane, but the thought quickly
disappeared as he automatically ran down the alert
scramble checklists and procedures in his head. She
was nothing more than a wingman to him now, his backup,
someone to watch his rear quadrant as they hunted down
whatever was out there. Vincenti sprinted for the alert
hangar. His crew chief, who had just come around a
corner, had no chance to catch up. Vincenti reached
the hangar first.
  On the wall to the right of the small entry
door were two large handles. Vincenti yelled,
"Hangar doors coming open!" and pulled both handles
down. The handles unlocked two sets of huge
counterweights, whose weight began swinging both the
front and rear hangar doors open hangar door
handles. Vincenti stepped into the parachute harness and
fastened the crotch and chest clips, leaving the straps
loose so he could run up the ladder and into his
F-16 A.d.f Fighting Falcon fighter
jet. Gloves went on, sleeves rolled down,
zippers zipped, and collars turned up as
Vincenti trotted toward his fighter.
  Six steps up the ladder and a quick leap into the
cockpit, and Lieutenant Colonel Also
Vincenti was in his office and ready for work.
  As soon as his helmet was on and fastened, he
flipped the MAIN PWR switch to BATT, the
JFS (jet Fuel Starter) switch to START
1, cracked the throttle on the left side of the
cockpit from its cutoff detent forward a bit
to give the engine a good shot of gas, then moved it
back into idle when the rpms reached 15 percent.
  Sixty seconds later, the engine was at idle
power and his crew chief had his seat belt,
parachute, and G-suit hoses connected
and tightened.
  The GPS system was feeding navigation information to the
inertial navigation set, and he performed a flight
control system and emergency power system check.
He made a quick flight control check by moving the
control stick in a circle, or "stirring the pot,"
and his crew chief was standing in front of the hangar,
ready to marshal him forward. He saw Major
Linda McKenzie running past his open hangar
door, carrying her boots and wearing nothing on her
feet but white athletic socks, still zipping her
G-suit zippers.
  She flashed her middle finger at him as she
sprinted by.
  "Should've showed me your tits after you put your gear
on, Linda," Vincenti said, chuckling. He
completed his checklists, flipping through the radios as
he waited for McKenzie to start engines and check
in. His VHF radio, secondary U.h.f
radio, and HF radios were set to the GUARD
emergency frequencies, but there was dead silence. The
silence meant that this was going to be a covert intercept
--they were going to try to approach the unidentified
aircraft without being detected.
  Vincenti unstowed a canvas box from behind
his ejection seat, opened it, and checked the contents.
It was a set of AN/ATIONVG-11
  night-vision goggles which clipped onto his flight
helmet and would provide near daytime-like vision with just
a few ground lights, moonlight, or even
starlight.
  Vincenti saw McKenzie's crew chief trot
out to his marshaling position outside the hangar, and a
second later he saw her fighter's taxi light
flash on and off, so he clicked on the microphone
of his primary radio: "Foxtrot Romeo
flight, check."
  "Two," McKenzie replied breathlessly from
exertion and excitement.
  "Foxtrot Romeo" was their unit call sign
for their three day tour; inter letters and a two-digit
number, changed regularly by North American
Air Defense Command.
  "Fresno ground, Foxtrot Romeo flight
ready to taxi, active air scramble."
  "Foxtrot Romeo flight, Fresno ground,
taxi runway three-two, wind calm, altimeter
three-zero-zero-six." The traffic signal on the
fence changed from a flashing red to green, Vincenti
flipped the flight controlstnay function
knob to NAV, armed his ejection seat, turned on
the taxi light and released brakes, received final
clearance from his crew chief, and shot out of the alert
hangar, snapping a return salute and a
thumbs-up to his crew chief. As soon as he was
on the throat leading to the end of the runway, he
radioed, "Foxtrot Romeo flight, button
two, go."
  "Two."
  He switched to the tower frequency: "Foxtrot
Romeo flight, "Two.
  his
  "Fresno tower, Foxtrot Romeo flight,
active alert scramble."
  "Foxtrot Romeo flight, Fresno tower,
wind calm, runway three-two, cleared for
takeoff, contact Fresno Approach."
  "Foxtrot Romeo flight cleared for takeoff,
Foxtrot Romeo flight, button three, go."
  "Two."
  Vincenti switched to the next preset channel,
checked in McKenzie; then: "Fresno
Approach, Foxtrot Romeo flight of two,
takeoff roll Fresno, active air scramble."
  "Foxtrot Romeo flight, Fresno
Approach, air scramble departure, climb
unrestricted, contact Oakland Center passing ten
thousand."
  "Foxtrot Romeo flight, wilco." Without
stopping or looking for McKenzie, he taxied
quickly to the runway, lined up, gave his control
stick one more experimental "stir," moved the
throttle to military power, twisted the throttle
grip, and shoved it forward to full afterburner. At
seventy knots he clicked off nose-wheel
steering, at ninety knots he rotated the nose
to liftoff attitude, and at one hundred and twenty
knots the F-16 Fighting Falcon lifted into the
sky.
  He immediately lowered the nose to build up
airspeed, retracted landing gear, made sure the
trailing-edge flaps were up, accelerated to two
hundred and fifty knots, then pulled the nose
skyward. By the time he was over the end of the runway,
he was two thousand feet above the ground. At four
hundred and fifty knots he pulled the throttle
out of afterburner and into military power, then clicked
on his radio: "Foxtrot Romeo flight,
button four, go."
  "Two." He switched radio
frequencies. By that time he was passing ten thousand
feet. "Foxtrot Romeo flight, check."
  "Two."
  "Oakland Center, Foxtrot Romeo flight of
two with you out of ten thousand, active alert
scramble."
  "Foxtrot Romeo flight, radar contact
seven miles northwest of Fresno Air
Terminal passing ten thousand feet, have your wingman
squawk standby, cleared to tactical control
frequency."
  "Foxtrot Romeo flight, squawk standby,
button five, go."
  "Two."
  On March Air Force Base's SIERRA
PETE'S frequency now, Vincenti checked in
McKenzie, then: "SIERRA PETE, Foxtrot
Romeo flight is with you, passing sixteen thousand."
  "Foxtrot Romeo flight, radar contact,
check noses cold, turn left heading
three-zero-zero, climb and maintain angels
two-four block two-five."
  "Copy, heading three-zero-zero, climbing
to two-four block two-five, Foxtrot Romeo
flight, check." Vincenti had to push the
nose down to level off at twenty-four thousand
feet--usually he was sent to thirty thousand feet or
higher. He quickly accomplished his "After Takeoff'
and "Level-Off' checklists, checking his oxygen,
cabin pressurization, fuel feed, and all gauges
and switches, especially checking that the arming
switches for the 20-millimeter cannon were off--that
was the "noses cold" check. The external tanks
were empty, and he was already feeding from his wing tanks--
about two hours of fuel remaining.
  "Two's in the green, twenty point nine, nose
is cold," McKenzie reported after her
cockpit checks were completed, including her fuel and
weapons status with her report.
  "Copy. Lead's in the green with nineteen, nose
is cold."
  "Roger, Foxtrot Romeo flight, copy you
are in the green and noses cold," the Weapons
Control Technician at March Air Force
Base, call sign SIERRA PETE, replied.
"Your bogey is now at your eleven o'clock, one
hundred and fifty miles, a Czechoslovakian
I600 cargo plane at six thousand feet and
climbing. These are vectors for a Special-9
intercept."
  "Foxtrot Romeo copies," Vincenti
replied. pretty good guess, he thought,
congratulating himself--a Special-9 intercept was
a covert shadow, where the SOCC controller would put
him on a one-mile rear-quartering vector on the
bogey. From there, he would use his night-vision
goggles to close in on the bogey. If they needed
a tail number or other such positive
identification, they could close in more--Vincenti had
flown as close as ten meters to another plane, in
total darkness, without the other plane ever knowing he was
there-but normally they would stay within fifty to one
hundred meters of the target and shadow him while the
brass on the ground figured out what to do.
"Foxtrot Romeo flight, take spacing and
configure for Special-9."
  "Two." McKenzie would now move out to about
five miles in trail, keeping her flight leader
locked on radar, and put on and test her
night-vision goggles. Vincenti turned off all the
cockpit and external lights, reached into the canvas
case for the AN/ATIONV11 goggles, slid them
into place entirely by feel, and snapped them into the
slot on his helmet.
  But when Vincenti lowered the goggles
into place, all he got was black.
  He flipped the on-off switch, made sure they
were turned on, and looked for the telltale green
spot of light behind the lenses.
  Nothing. The battery was in place, and they were
tested and replaced after every use and at the beginning of every
three-day shift.
  These were dead. He clicked open his mike
button in frustration: "Hey, Two," Vincenti
radioed to McKenzie, "did you check your NVGS
yet?"
  "Affirmative," McKenzie replied.
"They're in the green."
  "My NVGS are bent. You got the lead and the
intercept."
  "Roger that, Rattler." The excitement in
McKenzie's voice was obvious.
  Except during exercises or when McKenzie
was paired with a less experienced wingman, Vincenti
was always the flight lead and always did the intercepts.
"Take the bottom of the block, I got the top,
and I got the radios. Take spacing. I have the
lead."
  "Roger, you have the lead," Vincenti replied,
descending to twenty-four thousand feet and
pulling power back to 80 percent. He tuned up his
radar, preparing to lock on to her when she passed
by.
  "Foxtrot Romeo, your bogey is at eleven
o'clock, ninety miles, turright heading
three-three-zero, maintain angels twenty," the
weapons controller at SIERRA PETE
directed.
  McKenzie acknowledged the call. She had pushed
the power up to nearly full military power, anxious
to get the intercept going, and Vincenti had to hit the
afterburner to catch up once her fighter passed by and
assumed the lead.
  "Foxtrot Romeo, your bogey is heading
southwest-bound, altitude nine thousand five
hundred, airspeed two-two-five knots,
squawking VFRIEND, call when tied on."
  That was the "setup" call, probably the last
radio call before the F's AN/APG-66
radar would pick up the target, helping to get the
pilots oriented. Once the radar locked on and the
proper target identified, the fire control computer
would present steering cues on the H.u.d, or
heads-up display, a transparent electronic
screen in front of the pilot that allowed the
pilot to read flight, radar, and weapon information
without looking down into the cockpit.
  McKenzie's radar was picking up several air
targets at altitudes between five to twenty thousand
feet, but there were not many aircraft flying around at
eleven o'clock at night. About two minutes later,
at a range of about forty miles, McKenzie
locked on to an aircraft that met the last
reported radar track information perfectly:
"SIERRA PETE, Foxtrot Romeo has
radar contact on a bogey at thirty-eight
miles, angels nine-point-five, bearing
zero-one-zero."
  "Foxtrot Romeo, that's your bogey."
  "Roger. Foxtrot Romeo is judy,
request clearance for the Special-9."
  "Foxtrot Romeo, this is SIERRA PETE,
you are cleared for Special-9 procedures."
  "Foxtrot Romeo copies," McKenzie
said, the excitement spilling over in her voice.
Vincenti had to smile to himself. This was certainly not
McKenzie's first intercept, or even her first
night intercept, but it was one of her most
important. He remembered his first no shit
real-world night intercept well, a
Chinese airliner suspected of being a spy plane
that was "drifting off course" and trying to fly over the
Alameda Naval Base near Oakland. That was
over fifteen years ago.
  That was just one of the things Vincenti remembered in
what had been, for him, a pretty good career. He
got into flying back in the 1960's, after receiving his
bachelor of arts degree in political science from
West Virginia State University in 1967.
He'd attended college on a football
scholarship. The typical jock. But unlike a
lot of jocks who went on to illustrious jobs like
selling cars and getting flabby, Vincenti was unable
to avoid the draft and ended up in Officer
Candidate School, where he received a commission and
attended pilot training in 1968. He flew
113 missions in Vietnam in the F-100
Super Sabre fighter-bomber and the F-4Do
Phantom II fighter bomber from 1969
to 1973, as well as holding command positions in
various tactical units.
  Vincenti went on to the Air Command and Staff
College upon returning from Vietnam and joined
tactical and training units in New Jersey and
Arizona, but was later involuntarily
separated from the active-duty Air Force, after his
second divorce. He got a position with the
California Air National Guard in 1978.
Except for a brief deployment to Germany in 1986
and 1987, Vincenti had been flying F-106's,
F-4Ds and F-16 fighters from the Fresno
Air Terminal for seventeen years.
  And speaking of flying .. . his mind immediately
returned to the situation at hand. In this intercept,
McKenzie still had to remember her procedures and not
get caught up in the excitement. Vincenti checked
a plastic-covered decoder device strapped to his
left leg, sliding a yellow plastic marker to the
fifth row of characters, then keyed his mike button:
"SIERRA PETE, Foxtrot Romeo flight,
authenticate echo-echo."
  "SIERRA PETE authenticates india,"
came the reply. It was the correct reply. All
intercept instructions that might place a fighter within
close proximity of another aircraft in a
potentially unsafe manner had to be authenticated,
whether or not weapons were expected to be employed,
using the daily authenticator cards issued to every
pilot.
  Hopefully, this one omission was going
to be the last one for Linda McKenzie tonight,
Vincenti thought ruefully. Well, that's what wingmen
were for--back up the leader at all times.
  Unfortunately, there was one switch McKenzie
did forget.
  On a normal intercept, the
150,000-candlepower identification light on the
left side of the nose was used to illuminate the
target-on a Special-9 covert intercept, the
light was supposed to be out.
  The large, bright beam, twice as bright as an
airliner's landing lights, was on full bright as
McKenzie made her approach toward the target,
and, because it was a crystal-clear night and he was flying
five miles behind and to his leader's right side,
Vincenti didn't notice the light was on.
  It was the Stork who saw it first, high and far off
in the distance, to the right rear of the LET L-600 and
almost blocked from view by the right wing and engine
nacelle. The horizon was dark, and the single,
unblinking light was like a laser beam aimed right at
them.
  He grasped Cazaux's right sleeve and
pointed. The Belgian mercenary had to get up out of
his seat to get a glimpse of the light.
  "I see it," Cazaux acknowledged. It was hard
to judge distances at night, but the brightness of the light
could mean that the aircraft, if it was an airliner, was
pretty far off in both distance and altitude.
  But it wasn't an airliner--Cazaux knew it
right away.
  It was moving fast and turning with them, not crossing
their path.
  It was intercepting them, no doubt about it.
"Puta, Stork," he said, "they found us already, the
fuckers. I think they zeroed the Air Force in on
us."
  The Stork pointed to the San Francisco
sectional chart and chattered away in a strange
mixture of Ethiopian, English, and Spanish.
  "Relax. There is nothing they can do to us."
  "Say what?" Jefferson "Krull" Jones
asked, staring out the windows with eyes so wide that the
whites could be seen in the dark cockpit.
  "There's an Air Force jet out there? Is it
gonna gun us down?"
  "Relax," Cazaux said casually. "I have been
intercepted dozens of times by the American Customs
Service, the Coast Guard, and the Drug Enforcement
Agency--even an Army helicopter. I
have never been fired upon. I do not think they have the
authority to kill anyone in peacetime without due
process."
  "Was that before or after you blew up a bunch of
cops and an entire airport, my man?" Krull
asked. "Maybe this might be the time they let those
flyboys "accidentally" let a few missiles
fly."
  Krull motioned out the cockpit windscreen to the
inky blackness of eastern California and the Sierra
Nevada mountain range ahead. "Looks pretty
black out there, Captain. A pretty good place
to splash a bunch of gun-runners."
  "Shut the fuck up. You don't know a damn
thing." The big black hoodlum had vocalized
Cazaux's own fear--this time, after so many close
calls and so much death, the authorities might want
Henri Cazaux out of the way for good. There was no one
better to do it than the U.s. Air Force. Who
would mourn his loss or condemn the United States
for such an act? He had enemies all over the world,
of every religion and nationality. The only ones to be
sorry might be the bounty hunters who would be cheated
out of the reward money.
  No, he was not sure that the fighters would
not open fire.
  He thought about their route of flight. To try to stay
away from ground radar, Cazaux had chosen to fly
on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, as
low as he dared to go. The sectional aeronautical
charts gave maximum elevation figures for each
thirty-by-thirty-mile block of land, and he would
simply add five hundred feet to each
quadrangle elevation--that would put his plane well
below radar coverage but safely above the terrain. But
that wouldn't faze an airborne radar, such as from a
fighter. Without extensive jamming equipment or
fancy flying, Cazaux had no hope of trying
to break a radar lock. If ordered to fire, the
fighters would have a clear shot-and flying along the
California-Nevada border, the area was
desolate enough so as not to threaten citizens on the
ground. They could simply pick their moment, and
shoot.
  "They will not open fire on us," Cazaux
decided. "This is America, and they are the
military--the military is forbidden to actively
get involved in law-enforcement activities,
except to assist in surveillance and to provide
transportation. They cannot act as judge,
jury, and executioner. Period."
  "I sure hope you're right, Captainea"...Jones
said, sitting back into the spot he had picked out in
a corner of the cockpit. "And if you ain't, I
don't want to know about it. I just hope it's over
fast."
  When the target's altitude dipped below the
hemispheric altitude for his direction of flight,
Vincenti became concerned.
  When his altitude dipped below the I.f.r
(instrument Flight Rules) minimum safe
altitude in this area, he was more concerned--and when it
drifted to within a few hundred feet of the rapidly
rising terrain ahead, Vincenti was positive that they
had been discovered. A quick S-turn
to McKenzie's portside confirmed it: her big
ID light was on full bright. The target must've
seen the light and was attempting to descend into the
mountainous terrain ahead. Their Special-9
covert intercept was blown. Well, no use in
embarrassing McKenzie.
  Vincenti keyed his mike button: "Foxtrot
Romeo, station check."
  "I'll make the call when I'm ready, Two,
just stand by."
  "Foxtrot Romeo lead, I recommend a
station check. I'm complete."
  "Later, Also. Stand by."
  She wasn't taking the hint. He had no
choice: "Lead, I'm on your left wing. Check
your damn switches! was The ID light went out
immediately this time--Vincenti could almost feel her
exasperation at her mistake, now that she realized
what the target was doing and why.
  A few moments later, just as Vincenti was
worrying about whether or not she was going to do something about
the new development, he heard McKenzie on the
command radio. "SIERRA PETE, this is
Foxtrot Romeo. I believe the target
aircraft got a visual on us. He has
descended very close to the terrain in this area.
Request further instructions." The weapons
controller replied with a simple "Stand by,
Foxtrot Romeo," and McKenzie and Vincenti
were left with their thoughts and doubts as they closed in on
the target.
  "How in hell did they see the fighters closing
in on them in the middle of the night?" Charles
Lofstrom, Deputy Director and Chief of
Operations for the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms, thundered over the phone. In
the fifteen minutes since the F-16 fighters had
been scrambled against Cazaux, the ATF, the
Marshals Service, the Air Force, and the FAA were
on a conference call, and Colonel Berrell had just
finished briefing the conference members on the status
of the chase. "I've worked with night intercepts before--
done properly, the pursuer can close to within a few
dozen yards without the suspect realizing a thing."
  "It doesn't matter how it happened--it
happened," U.s. Marshal Collins Baxter of the
Eastern District of California interjected.
  "The problem is, the possibility exists that
Cazaux knows he's being tailed."
  "Let's shoot the bastard down, then," Agent
Lofstrom said irritably.
  "I can get a warrant."
  "We can't shoot him down, and that's that,"
Captain Tellman said.
  "I thought this was explained to you, Lofstrom."
  "I know what you said, Captain, but I also know that
I got a federal judge that will give me a
warrant ordering you to take all necessary actions to stop
Cazaux from escaping."
  "A federal judge can't compel the Air
Force to do anything, especially kill someone. If
such a warrant existed, and if you asked me to follow
its instructions, I would turn it over to my
superior officer for evaluation, who I'm sure would
turn it over to his superior .
  .. you get my drift, Lofstrom? I suggest you
try a different approach."
  Tellman's statement of the obvious infuriated
Lofstrom, but he decided that trying a different
approach might not be a bad idea: "I don't
mean shoot him down, as in terminate him,"
Lofstrom said.
  "What I meant was, scare him. Fire across
his flight path, something like that."
  "Agent Lofstrom, as I explained to you earlier,
the only way our pilots are authorized to fire
their weapons is to kill someone," Tellman said,
shaking her head in exasperation. "We don't try
to scare anyone by spraying the skies with
twenty-millimeter shells."
  "You do it in the Navy--you know, a shot across the
bow."
  "Only when we know precisely and absolutely
that no one is in the way when the shell splashes
down," Tellman explained. "Racing
across north-central California at three hundred
miles an hour and ten thousand feet in the air,
there's no way of knowing who's under those rounds. And this
would be done at night, at close quarters.
  We can't take the risk."
  "You can't take the risk? What about my agents?
What about the innocent victims at that airport?
Christ, it's not Santa Claus we're chasing!"
Lofstrom exclaimed. "Lady, Henri Cazaux
is probably responsible for killing more human
beings in the past three years than your precious
Navy has since Vietnam."
  "All the same, Lofstrom," Tellman said,
"I won't put my forces in a situation where they
may have to do that. Law enforcement should have gotten the
suspect on the ground, alive. My interceptors
can't do the job for you in the air."
  "Then the suspect gets away with murder,"
Lofstrom said angrily, "and I won't allow that
to happen. Six of my best agents died tonight,
Captain Tellman, and I want Cazaux to pay
for what he did.
  Your planes are in a position to do that--and I
want some action!"
  "Look, this argument is getting us
nowhere," Timothy Lassen said via his portable
scrambled phone from the parking ramp at Chico
Airport, where his Black Hawk helicopter had
set down--the open ramp was the only part of the
airport not substantially damaged. "We've got
the Air Force interceptors trailing the suspect,
and he's got to come down sometime. It's doubtful if
he has the fuel reserves to make it all the way
into Mexico, but if he does, let's get DEA
and the State Department on the horn and get permission
to do a joint capture. We set up a
helicopter relay for his route of flight, and we
keep the Air Force fighters on the suspect's
tail, augmented with Customs trackers and anyone
else that can help. We send the helicopters down
to recover the guns if he tries to drop them, and
we'll know his exact location if he tries to land."
  "We don't have time for that," Lofstrom said. "It
takes time to equals .
  set up a relay system, and days to coordinate
with the Mexican government for law-enforcement
support."
  "Cazaux will be airborne for at least two, and
more likely three hours," Lassen said. "I've
already got the California Air National
Guard alerted, and I've got access to all the
helicopter support I need. We can get
permission for the choppers to cross state lines."
  "So how in hell are your choppers in California
going to chase down a fixed-wing flying over
Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico?"
  Lofstrom asked. "Unless they're right in
Cazaux's flight path, they won't be able to catch
up, even if they launched right this second.
  We've got to get Cazaux turned away from
Mexico if we want any chance of nailing him--
and the best thing we've got right now is the Air
Force. Those pilots have got to turn Cazaux
westbound. Even if he just slows him down or gets
him to make a few turns or descend, it'll
disorient him and may give us a chance to surround him.
If he tries to fight out of the trap, we can legally
blast him out of the sky and be done with all this
nonsense," Lofstrom said to Tellman. "So how
about it, Captain? Can your hotshot pilots force
Cazaux to turn or descend?
  You say your pilots can't safely fire a few
shots across his bow--I say they can. Crowd him so
he's forced to turn away .. . ?"
  "We don't have procedures for any of
that, Agent Lofstrom," Tellman replied. She
thought about it for a moment, checking the aircraft's
position, then: "However, at the target's present
position, I think our crews may be able to safely
fire their cannon without endangering themselves, the
suspect, or anyone on the ground. I can pitch the
idea to NORAD and Air Combat Command and get a
response in a few minutes."
  "Now you're talking, lady," Lofstrom said on
the scrambled phone link.
  "Lassen, get your choppers airborne and
spread out across his flight path. If this works,
he'll be forced to head westbound and eat up more fuel,
and we can nail him in California."
  "Agent Lofstrom, the suspect is carrying a
planeload of explosives, and I think the last
thing you want to do is steer him over any populated
areas," Agent Lassen radioed in. "I
recommend either getting him to land at an isolated
airfield in the Sierras or shooting him down over
the Sierras. If he flies over Sacramento,
or Stockton, or Sanjose, or San
Francisco, there's no telling what he might
do."
  "I agree," Captain Tellman
said. "Tactically, keeping him over sparsely
populated areas is better because it gives our
pilots more options."
  "Listen, I'm all in favor of seeing the man
blown out of the sky," Lofstrom said. "I'll throw a
fucking party for you if you do it.
  But just letting him orbit over the Sierras,
hoping he'll dump his cargo, or forcing him
to crash-land in the Sierras, means he'll have a chance
to get away. It'll take a half a day to send
our search teams up into the hills to be ready to pick
him up--there's no time for that.
  Cazaux's an expert in mountain survival--
he could survive for weeks up there.
  Have the fighters corral him into the hands of our
choppers and SOG units in the valley. In case
he jumps I'll get State working on a
cross-border or joint capture with Mexico--the
taco-crunchers owe Cazaux plenty over the
years. You know, I think we got the bastard now.
  Cazaux completed a steep right bank as the
Stork searched out the cockpit windows in the
direction of the turn. Krull searched out the windows
in the entry door for any sign of pursuit.
Instead of turning left back to course,
Cazaux made another unexpected bank to the right,
hoping to catch their pursuers. But the darkness was
absolute--not even the stars were shining anymore.
Cazaux eased the L-600 back on course,
then accomplished another fast turning maneuver.
"I don't see them anymore," Taddele
"Stork" Korhonen said cross-cockpit
to Cazaux.
  "The light has disappeared."
  "They obviously discovered their error," Cazaux
said. "Whoever it was, they could be heading back
to base."
  "Or they could be right on our butts," Jefferson
"Krull" Jones observed. "What are you gonna
do, man?"
  "I need not do anything," Cazaux said. "We will
either die when they open fire on us or we will be
allowed to continue. But I don't think they have the
stomach for a fight. They will follow us and try
to capture us when we land."
  "So you got something planned for them at the landing
zone, Captain?"
  Krull asked.
  "That will be a surprise, Krull," Cazaux
said. "Right now, I want you to--"
Suddenly a flash of blue-orange light erupted
just a few feet away from the right side of the LET
L-600, and the loud, unmistakable brrrr! of a
high-speed, heavy-caliber cannon could be heard
over the roar of the engines. They saw another tongue
of fire flash, causing a stroboscopic effect that
froze the L's right propellers; then, an
impossibly bright white searchlight flashed
directly into Cazaux's face. All three men
on the flight deck of the L-600 were instantly
blinded. The searchlight began to blink in rapid
flashes of three, followed by a pause, then another
group of three flashes, a pause, then a third
group of three--the ICAO (international Civil
Aviation Organization) signal that an armed
interceptor aircraft is following you.
  "Attention on the aircraft under my searchlight,
this is the United States Air Force," a
female voice came over the radio on the
emergency GUARD channel. "You are surrounded
by two armed U.s. military fighter aircraft.
By order of the U.s. Department of the Treasury and the
U.s.justice Department, immediately turn right to a
heading of two-four-zero and lower your landing gear. If
you do not comply, you will be fired upon.
Acknowledge immediately. Over."
  "They were on our tail the whole time!" the Stork
yelled. He instinctively tried to bank away from
the F-16 that was so close to his front
windscreen, but Cazaux held the controls firm.
"What do we do?
  What should we do?"
  "Get a grip, Stork," Cazaux ordered,
pushing the Ethiopian's hands away from the control
yoke. He quickly shut off the aircraft's
transponder, the radio device that transmitted
standard identification and tracking data to FAA air
traffic control--no use in trying to pretend they were
a regular flight anymore. "We are not going
to surrender to the authorities. Never! I will not
give them the satisfaction." The cannon on the
F-16 flashed again near the right windscreen, and the
searchlight pierced the darkness of the L's cockpit.
Cazaux's eyes had just gotten readjusted to the
darkness, and the hot white light was painful this time.
"Attention on the L-600, this is your last
warning."
  "No!" Cazaux shouted. "Fuck you, bitch!"
  "Lower your landing gear immediately!" the female
voice shouted once again on the GUARD
radio channel. "This is your final warning!"
  "Look out!" Korhonen shouted. The glare of the
F's searchlight revealed how close they were
getting to the mountains ahead-they could see position and
anticollision lights. They had been forcing him lower
and lower toward the rising terrain, he realized. He
would be forced to use more power, and more fuel, to climb
over the terrain, or be diverted left or right around
it. Every minute he wasted on these unplanned
maneuvers was another minute farther from his
objective.
  "Bastards! was Cazaux shouted. "You want me,
you take me--but I will take you to hell with me!" And
at that, Cazaux threw the LET L-600 into a
steep right turn into the F-16 fighter.
  Not surprisingly, the F-16 effortlessly
dodged away--his maneuver was totally expected.
They were toying with him, Cazaux realized, a very real
cat-and-mouse game. That hard turn probably
cost him his scheduled landing in Mexico. If
Cazaux was correct about their position, he knew
that the terrain was rising much faster to the left, and a
turn in that direction might be fatal. He had no
choice--he had to turn right and climb.
  "You are not going to make it to your
destination, mister!" the female Air Force pilot
radioed. "Federal agents are in helicopters
all the way from here to the Mexican border waiting
to pick you up when you land, and there are more fighters and
radar planes on their way to track you, so flying
low won't help you. Your best option is to follow
me and surrender."
  Korhonen and jones were staring at Cazaux,
worried. The powerful searchlight on the F-16
revealed every tension line, every quivering muscle in the
terrorist's face. For the first time, they saw real
despair in that face, like a wild animal caught
in a trap. "What you gonna do, Captain?"
Jones asked him.
  "What can I do? I need time to think!" Cazaux
snapped. "I try to tell myself that they will not open
fire, that they will not shoot this plane down, but I am
not so sure now. It'd be too easy for them to make
a convenient "mistake," and this countryside is
sparse enough that they wouldn't endanger anyone if they
send this plane crashing into the ground. I need time
to think." He paused for a few moments, his fingers
nervously massaging the well-worn horns of the
control yoke; then he turned the LET L-600
farther right, pulled off a notch of power and,
to the Stork's surprise, lowered the landing gear and
turned on all the exterior lights.
  "What are you doing, Captain?" the Stork shouted
over the roar of the gear in the slipstream.
  "I am buying time, Stork," Cazaux said.
"With the gear down, their fingers will stay off the cannon
trigger--I hope. Keep this plane headed toward
Sacramento or Stockton--any population center
you can see. The longer we stay over populated
areas, the less likely they will shoot."
  "Fly a heading of three-zero-zero for Mather
Jetport," the female Air Force pilot
radioed. Mather Jetport was a former Air Force
base that had been taken over by the county of
Sacramento and turned into a commercial cargo and
airliner maintenance facility.
  It had a long two-mile-long runway and was an
Air National Guard helicopter gunship base.
They would have plenty of firepower support to help
capture Cazaux and secure the cargo plane.
"You have two F-16 fighters on you now, both within
one mile. Do not deviate from course unless
instructed. Do you understand? Over."
  Cazaux keyed the microphone button:
"Mais oui, mademoiselle.
  I understand. I do not know why you are doing this. You
obviously have confused me with someone else. I have
done nothing wrong.
  But I will follow your instructions. Can you
activate your position lights, mademoiselle?
I cannot see you."
  "I have visual contact on you just fine," the Air
Force pilot replied.
  "Stay off this frequency unless instructed
to reply."
  It was the reply he was hoping for: "Mr.
Krull, in the second pallet, gray metal
case, a pair of night-vision goggles. Get them
quickly."
  On the radio, Cazaux continued: "Obviously
you accuse me of doing something so wrong as to threaten
to shoot me down--I think a relatively minor
crime such as talking too much cannot be any worse,"
Cazaux said, using his best, most urbane, most
lighthearted voice.
  "You sound like a very young and pretty woman,
mademoiselle.
  Plesed at the response--Cazaux did not
expect one. He pulled back another notch of
power and lowered five degrees of flaps--
not enough to be noticed by the fighter, but enough so he could
safely slow down another ten to twenty knots. As
he fed in some elevator trim to maintain
altitude see how slow the F-16 fighter can
fly, shall we?"
  "I got "em," he heard Krull say behind
him. The "goggles" were actually older NVG-3
model monocular night-vision scopes, bulky and
heavy, with a separate battery pack and a head mounting
harness kit.
  "Plug them in, search out the windows for the fighter
on our right wing," Cazaux said. "Tell me the
approximate angle of attack of the fighter."
  "The what?"
  "Tell me how high the fighter's nose is from the
horizon, and whether she has deployed flaps--the
control surfaces on the front and back edges of the
wings. Do it."
  It took a long time for Krull to figure out how
to use the night vision goggles and to study the
F-16 fighter beside them. In that time, Cazaux had
slowed the LET down to below 160 knots and had fed
in ten degrees of flaps. They were also much closer
to the central part of the Sacramento Valley, with the
city lights of central California's
megalopolis stretching from Modesto to the south all
the way up to Marysville to the north, and the bright glow
of San Francisco to the west, visible to them. In
a few minutes they would be flying over the Route
99 corridor, a two-hundred-mile-long string
of cities and towns with over two million
residents. Cazaux felt safe from attack by the
Air Force fighter now--they would probably kill
hundreds of persons on the ground if they were shot
down.
  "You still have not told me your name, mademoiselle"
Cazaux said on the radio. "You know we shall never
meet, so indulge me this simple pleasure."
  "Stay off the frequency," the female Air
Force pilot replied angrily.
  The terrorist smiled--he could easily hear the
tension in the woman's voice. At only one
hundred and sixty knots, the F-16 must be
getting extremely difficult to control.
  "I can't tell shit, man," Krull said as he
came back into the cockpit and knelt beside the
pilots" seats. "I can see the tail
thingamabobs mavin' like crazy."
  "The horizontal tail surfaces."
  "What-the-fuck-ever. I think I see
the front part of the wings curled downwards a bit.
I can't see nothin' else."
  "What about the landing gear? Did you see the wheels
down?"
  "Oh, yeah, man, I saw them. They was down."
  "Good." Cazaux didn't know much about the
F-16 Fighting Falcon, but he did know that they
must be close to its approach speed.
  At the very least, the F-16 pilots would have their
hands full trying to keep up with the slow-flying
L-600--and if he was lucky, they wouldn't be able
to keep up, and they'd be forced to break off the
intercept or turn it over to someone else. Either
way might provide an opportunity to escape.
  "Lead, go ahead and accelerate out," Vincenti
radioed to McKenzie on the command channel. He was
one thousand feet above the LET L-600 cargo
plane, in a tight orbit over Cazaux and
McKenzie. Since he put his landing gear down,
Cazaux's airspeed had bled off to the point where
he could no longer safely shadow the target, so he
had to orbit.
  Soon, McKenzie would have no choice but
to orbit as well--the sooner she transitioned to an
orbit, the better.
  "I've got a lock on him. Transition to your
racetrack."
  McKenzie wasn't listening.
  With her landing gear down, her leading-edge and
trailing-edge flaps extended, and the flight control
system in takeoffstland, the angle-of-attack
indexers were beginning to hit the stops, and the lowspeed
warning tone would intermittently sound, which meant she
had to take her hand off the throttle to silence the
horn. Flying at such low airspeeds was common for
landing, but she wasn't accustomed to doing it in level
flight, at night, flying close to a strange
aircraft that had already tried to turn into her. But she
didn't want to break off the intercept--Henri
Cazaux wasn't going to get the satisfaction of
watching her fly away.
  "Lead, you copy?" Vincenti radioed to her again.
"Clean up and I'll take over. Transition
to radar pursuit."
  "I got it, Also," she radioed back. But she
didn't have it, and couldn't keep it, and she knew it.
When pursuing a slow-speed target like this, the
normal procedure was to begin a racetrack
pattern around the target, keeping the speed up in
safe limits. A racetrack was
dangerous at night, since radar contact could not be
maintained on the wingman while in the racetrack, and
Vincenti had no night vision goggles.
  But she had no choice. The low-speed warning tone
came on for the seventh time. The target had slowed
down below 150 knots, and there was no way
McKenzie could hold that speed in an F-16.
  "Correction. Lead's entering the racetrack.
Two, you have the intercept.
  Break. SIERRA PETE, this is Foxtrot
Romeo flight, the target has decelerated--we
are transitioning to radar pursuit."
  "Two's in," Vincenti replied. McKenzie
smoothly advanced the throttle to military power,
raised the landing gear before passing 80 percent power,
and began a right turn away from the LET
L-600.
  "The fighter's leavin' to was Jones crowed.
"Landin " gear's up .
  ..
  it's turnin" away!"
  "They won't be leaving, only setting up an
orbit over us so they can keep us in sight and keep
their airspeed up," Cazaux said. "But they'll
give us some breathing room now, and the lower
airspeed gives us some more time."
  "To do what, man?" Jones asked. "We still got
two jets on our tail, and sure as shit they're
callin' their buddies to help out.
  With the gear hangin', we'll be runnin' on
fumes in an hour."
  "I know all that, Mr. Krull," Cazaux said
in exasperation.
  "Shut up and let me think."
  He didn't have much time to think, because soon the line
of lights along the Route 99 corridor reached
its largest expanse at the capital city of
Sacramento. There were four major airports around
Sacramento, all surrounded by housing subdivisions,
offices, and light-industrial facilities;
Mather Jetport was the largest airport east of the
city.
  Already the rotating beacon and runway lights were
visible--they were less than thirty miles out, about
fifteen minutes from touchdown.
  Their flight path was taking them northwest bound
toward Highway 50, a busy freeway linking
Sacramento with the Sierra Nevada foothills;
once reaching that freeway, a turn to the west would
put them on a five-mile final
approach to Mather Jetport. The lights of the
sprawling city were breathtaking, but Cazaux hardly
noticed them--all he saw was his plane surrounded
by federal agents, a shootout, an explosion, a
fireball .
  .
  .
  Explosion .. .
  Fireball .. .
  He certainly had enough ingredients on board
to create plenty of very big explosions and
fireballs. "Take the aircraft," he told the
Stork as he unfastened his lap and shoulder belts.
"Do whatever they say, follow any vectors they
give you, until I give the word."
  "We are landing?" the Stork asked incredulously.
"We will land ?"
  "Not unless they shoot out the engines, Stork, and
then they will still have a fight on their hands. Mr.
Krull, give your night-vision goggles to Stork
and follow me." He stepped out of his seat and
hurried There was not much room, and the two men had
difficulty squeezing themselves between the cargo on the
pallets and the cold aluminum aircraft
fuselage. Krull thought he couldn't
make the tight squeeze, but as if by magic he
sucked it all in when it came time to squeeze around
the forward pallet--he didn't want one unnecessary
bit of clothing or skin to touch the crates of high
explosives stacked atop that pallet. Krull
didn't have any fear of those explosives when they were
on the ground or being loaded, but now up there in the
air, being swayed and bounced around, it seemed as if
they were tiny thin eggshells waiting to .. .
  "Grab two cases of grenades from that pallet
and bring them to me, Mr. Krull," Cazaux shouted
over the roar of the engines.
  Krull's eyes widened in absolute horror.
"Say what .. . ?"
  "Damn it, stop stalling! Loosen those straps and
bring two crates of grenades back here on the
double."
  Loosening the cargo netting and withdrawing those two
cases was one of the most terrifying things Krull had
ever done--all he could see was the
Styrofoam-shrouded canister of P.e.t.n in the
center of the pallet.
  Every inch he moved the two grenade cases meant
loosening the white foam blocks, and in his mind's
eye he could visualize the explosive
crystals sloshing around, the molecular heat
building, the blinding flash of light as the unstable
chemicals exploded, detonating the rest of the
explosives they carried, then destroying the
aircraft in a big jet fuel fireball. His
own strength amazed him--he held one thirty-pound
case of grenades securely in one hand while
maneuvering other crates and bags around to fill the
gap and secure the P.e.t.n canister, while
keeping his balance against the occasional turbulence and
swaying. Cazaux offered him no help except
to take the first crate of grenades and begin working.
  When Krull brought the second case of
grenades back to Cazaux, he couldn't believe
what the terrorist was doing--he had released all of the
missiles and was placing the grenades in between the
missile coffins, with the safety pins removed and the
arming handles held in place--barely-by the
loosened crates! "What the fuck are you doin,"
man?" Krull shouted.
  "Doing a little creative mine-laying, Mr.
Krull," Cazaux said, wearing a twisted smile.
"I am going to attack the law enforcement officers
on the airport below us."
  "You gonna what?"
  "The Stinger missile motors will explode, but
they need a booster," Cazaux said calmly. "The
grenades will do, but I don't have time to rig up a
contact fuse. But if we push this pallet outside
while we're above one hundred and twenty-eight
feet aboveground, the grenades will explode before the
pallet hits the ground. The results should be most
rewarding."
  "You're really fuckin" crazy, man."
  But Cazaux ignored him. He put on a
headset and clicked open the intercom button:
"Stork, I want you to make a normal approach
to the runway they designate. Let me know when
we're one mile from the runway. Just before touchdown
I want you to maneuver over the vehicles that will
undoubtedly be parked on the side of the runway.
Then I want you to go to full throttle and climb
over them.
  When we pass two hundred feet, signal
me. Do you understand?"
  Cazaux didn't wait for a response--they would
have only one shot at this, so either Korhonen would do it
or he wouldn't. "After that maneuver, I want you
to fly as low as you can go westbound. Stay over the
interstate and keep the power up. Low
altitude and speed is the only protection we'll
have when they come after us."
  Linda McKenzie had never felt such an
overwhelming sense of accomplishment as she did that
night as they approached Mather Jetport.
  They had just assisted in the capture of one of the
world's most wanted terrorists--and she led the
intercept! Her minor switch slipup at the
beginning of the intercept would certainly be forgotten.
  In fact, this seemed to be having a better
result than a covert Special-9 intercept
would have had.
  The feds and the cops were certainly out in force to put
the suspect on ice. Both sides of Mather's
two-mile-long runway were choked with flashing
lights, and more were pouring onto the former military
base--the entire parking ramp in front of the old
base-operations building was bumper-to-bumper
emergency vehicles.
  Streets were being cordoned off all around the
facility. The five-mile exclusion zone around
Mather had been breached years ago, but
residential sprawl had not yet totally closed in
on the base, so the area around the airport was only
sparsely dotted with residences.
  "You're cleared to land on two-two left,
Cazaux," McKenzie radioed to the L-600.
"Stop straight ahead on the runway and don't
try to turn off."
  "I understand," a strange voice replied. It
wasn't Cazaux-probably the copilot. Could
Cazaux have escaped? Once they went to radar
tracking instead of visual tracking, someone could have
parachuted from the aircraft without their noticing.
Capturing the plane and the weapons on board was good,
but Cazaux himself was the big prize.
  "Henri Cazaux, this is Special Agent
Fortuna of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms, U.s. Treasury Department," a
voice cut in on the channel. "I'm the on-scene
commander. We are tracking you with Stinger missiles and
helicopter gunships. If you try to evade
capture, we are authorized to open fire on your
aircraft.
  Do you understand, Cazaux?"
  "Russ? Is that you? Ca va bien, mon ami?"
a thick, French accented voice came on over the
channel. "How is America's famous Nazi
storm trooper doing?" It was Henri Cazaux's
voice--he was still on the plane. This was
going to be one sweet evening, McKenzie thought.
  "You wouldn't be so cheerful if you knew how many
guns and missiles we got on you right now,
Henri," Fortuna radioed back.
  "Make a nice pretty landing. You're on the
news from coast to coast."
  "I would not want any of your gunners' fingers
to twitch on the triggers, Russell," Cazaux
said. "Would you please ask them to lower their weapons?
I have decided to surrender--I will take my chances
with the American justice system."
  "You might as well get used to the sight of guns
pointed at you, Cazaux," Fortlma said, "because that's
what you're going to see every waking minute of your life
from now on. Now get off my radio frequency and
do as you're ordered. We've got this entire area
closed off, and we've got the green light to blow
your ass out of the sky. Don't screw it up."
  "It will be good to see you again too, mon ami."
Cazaux laughed.
  They were now less than two miles from the
runway. McKenzie had made the decision to stay
with the cargo plane for the entire approach, flying to the
left and slightly behind the L-600--and she kept
her 20-millimeter cannon armed and the
pipper within a few mils of Cazaux's plane.
If given the signal, she could squeeze off a
one-second burst that would certainly shear off the
L's left engine nacelle and propeller and send
the cargo plane spiraling into the ground, away from the
more populated areas of the town of Rancho Cordova
north of the airfield and into the vacant tracts of
land to the south. She was not sure where Vincenti was,
but she assumed he would keep both aircraft in
sight at all times and be ready to assist, track,
or attack if something went wrong.
  "Keep it coming, Cazaux," Fortuna radioed
again. "Keep that airspeed down--and if we hear the
power come up on those engines, that'll be our signal
to open fire."
  "I understand, Russ," Cazaux radioed. He
switched quickly to intercom: "Stork--how far?"
  "One mile now, sir."
  Cazaux hit a switch on the aft cargo-bay
bulkhead, and the cargo ramp began to lower and the upper
ramp door began to retract upward into the cargo
bay. The electrically actuated upper door was
fully raised in just a few seconds; the ramp,
powered by large hydraulic arms, took considerably
longer. "Get on the front of that
pallet, Mr. Krull," Cazaux said, wearing
an evil grin, "and stand by on that last toucan
clamp."
  Krull had just barely made his way forward to the
front of the pallet when he heard the engines
rapidly spooling up to full power.
  "Get ready!" Cazaux shouted. He switched
to the comm channel on the intercom and shouted into the
microphone, "Russell, my friend, hold out your
hands and close your eyes--I'm going to give you a
big surprise!"
  then dropped the microphone and grasped a
bulkhead handhold.
  At that instant, the cargo plane heeled sharply
upward.
  Korhonen's timing was perfect: when Cazaux
looked out of the open cargo doors, all he saw was
dozens of emergency vehicles clustered near the
intersection of the main runway and the large midfield
taxiway.
  "Nowff"...Cazaux shouted. "Release!"
  Krull pulled on the clamp lever, but nothing
happened--it was jammed.
  He struggled with it, but the steeply angled deck
had pulled the straps tight, and the curled
toucan clamp would not budge. "It ain't going,"
man!" Krull shouted.
  But Cazaux was already moving. Struggling against the
steeply sloped deck, Cazaux reached across the
pallet, his large switchblade knife in his hands,
and cut the remaining strap. The pallet did not need
a push by anyone--sliding on the rollers embedded in
the floor of the self-loading cargo hold, the
pallet picked up speed rapidly and actually
seemed to fly for several feet before it disappeared from
view.
  Just as McKenzie thought i. was all coming to an end,
when she could fly her F-16 back to Fresno and
receive the warm congratulations of her friends and commanders,
all hell broke loose.
  The LET L-600 heeled sharply right just a
few feet from the ground, right over the biggest cluster
of emergency vehicles lining the north side of the
runway. The move took her by surprise--she was
concentrating more on lining up with the south edge of the
runway and keeping the Fighting Falcon in control
as she followed the L-600 down the glide path.
She applied right stick to follow, but the fighter
wallowed and started to sink, and she goosed the power
back up to 80 percent. Her next
responsibility was to get the gunsight back on
target, but at her present speed and angle of
attack, that was impossible. Then the L-600 went
into a steep climb, passing virtually directly in
front of the pipper. "Control, this is Foxtrot
Romeo Two, do I have permission to fire?" she
radioed.
  "No! was a frantic voice shouted. "Don't
fire! Hold your fire!"
  But McKenzie realized that the voice didn't
identify himself, and it could be anyone giving that order
--even Cazaux himself. She brought the landing gear
handle up, then put the aux flap switch
to EXTEND, which would keep the trailing-edge flaps
down while the gear was up and allow her to fly slower
and stay in control.
  "Control, do you want Foxtrot Romeo
to attack? The target appears to be evading--do I
have permission to attack?"
  "Linda, this is Also," she heard on the
interplane frequency, "break left!"
  She could hear Vincenti's sudden warning, but she
didn't dare try to look down into the cockpit
to change radios--she was less than three hundred
yards from the L-600. She had a
momentary thought about turning--an order to "break" was
not just a turn, it was a command to get the hell out of
there. Instead, she stayed lined up on the left wing
of the L-600 and said on the command channel, "I'm
staying on the target! Control, what are your
instructions? Do you want me to attack? Control,
respond .. ."
  McKenzie caught a glimpse of a bright flash
of light off to her right, but it was near the ground and she
assumed it was one of the emergency vehicles"
rotating lights or a photographer's flash.
  Then she saw a huge ripple of lights erupt
all around her jet, heard a thunderous bang! and
felt a gigantic ramming force smack her F's
fuselage.
  The thirteen grenades shoved between the cases of
Stinger missiles exploded well before the pallet
hit the ground, which only Histo served to increase the
devastation. The chain reaction created by the i
exploding grenades was quick and furious--the shrapnel
from the grenades tore through the battery unit cases,
blowing apart the high pressure nitrogen-gas
canisters, rupturing the battery cells, cooking
off the chemicals and spraying superheated chemicals
inside the missile coffins. The rocket
motors went next. Normally they would slowly
burn inside their cases, but the shock and hot
chemicals , caused them to explode instead. Some
of the missiles did cook off, sending white-hot
spears of fire into nearby buildings and vehicles.
  The fragmenting pallet erupted into a blossom of
fire when it hit the emergency vehicles on the
ground, throwing petals of fire and explosive
Stinger warheads out in all directions. The Stinger
missiles seemed to have eyes, or active seeker
heads--it seemed as if every one of the missiles that
cooked off slammed right into a building or
vehicle.
  "Oh, shit .. ." was all Jefferson Jones
could say as he and Cazaux watched the maddening scene
unfold below them. It was like watching a fireworks
show's finale from above--the big explosion, followed
by numero side explosions, and then the twinkling of
burning debris scattered all across the airfield.
  "That .. . was .. . magnificent," Cazaux
muttered. "That was .
  .
  incredible. Absolutely incredible .. ."
  As the L-600 began to level off, then point
earthward to regain speed and begin evading
pursuit, Krull moved aft and began motoring the
ramp and upper cargo doors closed.
  azaux stumbled around on the right side of the cargo
bay, leaning against the second pallet. He then
eyed the forward pallet, the one containing the real
explosives.
  "Move that second pallet aft to the edge of the
ramp," he told Krull as he located the
microphone, "and help me move that third pallet
aft. I am going to deliver that last pallet on a
target that no one will forget for a very long time." He
clicked open the mike: "Stork, do exactly as
I say, and your navigation had better be dead on."
  The large MASTER CAUTION light on the left
eyebrow panel came on, along with the
HYD/OIL PRESS warning light on the right
eyebrow panel.
  It seemed as if the entire caution-light panel
was illuminated--ELEC SYS, CADC, STBY
GAINS, FUEL HOT, those were the biggies--and the
oil and hydraulic pressure gauges were bouncing
all over the place.
  It was time to jump out, she decided.
  She had never even come close to ejecting out of
any aircraft before, not in ten years of
flying the F-16. Air Force training always said,
"Don't hesitate. Trust your equipment," and
she was perfectly willing and ready to do so.
McKenzie reached for her ejection seat lever and .
  ..
  "Linda! This is Also! How do you hear? It
looks like you've been fragged, but there is no fire,
repeat, negative fire. How do you hear?
  Over?"
  She was surprised to hear Vincenti on the radio
--she had assumed, incorrectly, that everything in her
stricken ship was out.
  She moved the throttle--no response, with
fuel flow in the red but rpms below idle power. She
moved the stick--aha, the controls were still but
responding. Emergency power unit had turned on
automatically. She raised the nose, and the jet
responded by climbing.
  If nothing else, she was able to trade airspeed
for altitude and get a little higher before ejecting, but
she had a few seconds to try to work the problem.
  McKenzie took her hands off the ejection lever
and back on the stick and throttle, then started to work
on her caution-light analysis.
  The engine was stalled from a massive
disruption of airflow through the engine, so she immediately
pulled the throttle to idle, waited a few
excruciating seconds as the airspeed bled off below
safe engine restart speed, then slowly advanced the
throttle ag.just as she was convinced the engine was not
going to come back, the rpms eased from 55 percent
to 65 percent and the fan-turbine inlet
temperatures subsided out of the red zone. Quickly but
carefully she advanced the throttle above 170
knots. She was safely flying again.
  She set the throttles to 80 percent and, one
by one, began working on the other malfunctions. As
soon as she could, she tried to reset the generators
with the ELEC CAUTION RESET button--no go,
it kept on tripping off. She placed the emergency
power unit to ON, and checked the power-distribution
lights. With only the emergency power unit
providing power to the essential bus, she had the
barest minimum equipment running--but she was still
flying. Only the U.h.f radio on the
interplane frequency was operating--that's how she could
still hear Vincenti. "Also, how do you hear me?"
  "Fine, Linda," Vincenti said. "Roll out of
your turn and get your nose down. I've got you
at five thousand feet. How's your
controllability?
  Check your engines."
  "I cleared a stall, and I've got partial
generators and E.p.u on line," McKenzie
said. She straightened her F's wings and found the
controls very sluggish. "Looks like I lost my
hydraulics--the E.p.u is the only
hydraulics and power I got left." The
E.p.u, or emergency power unit, used bleed
air from the engine or hydrazine to power a simple
power unit that supplied backup hydraulic and
electrical power for about fifteen minutes.
"System A pressure is good, and my essential
bus is energized. What the hell happened?"
  "Cazaux," Vincenti replied simply. "He
dropped something out the back end, a bomb or something.
I can still see explosions.
  Just hold your heading. I'll come around on your
left side. Hang tight, we'll be OK.
Let's start a slow climb to ten thousand and start
working out what we got. What's your fuel state?"
  "I can't tell--gauge is mop," McKenzie
said. "Fuel low and fuel hot lights came on
right away, and I think one of my wing tanks is
gone."
  "That's confirmed, you lost one. You still got your right
tank, and it's pretty beat-up," Vincenti said as
he checked out McKenzie's fighter with his ID
searchlight. "I don't think it'll do a normal
jettison because of the damage, so you're going to have to land
with it."
  It took Vincenti a few minutes to fly around
McKenzie's jet and look her over. In that time,
they had climbed up to ten thousand feet over the
sparsely settled ranches and farms south of
Sacramento. "I see lots of damage to your
underside, Linda. You may or may not get a good
landing gear. What do you think, Linda? How does
she feel to you?"
  McKenzie knew what that question meant: did she
want to eject or did she want to try for a landing?
"I'm not jumping out of this plane, Also,"
McKenzie said. "Lead me over to Mcclellan."
Mcclellan Air Force Base, just north of
Sacramento, was a large military aircraft
maintenance depot with lots of runways and crash
equipment-McKenzie was going to need all the help
she could get.
  It was only twenty miles across the top of the city
of Sacramento to get to Mcclellan, but for
McKenzie it was the longest flight of her entire
life. Her approach speed when starting her descent
into Mcclellans north-south runway was 220
knots, much faster than normal, and it was nearly
impossible to maintain it without considerable control
problems. Several times the engine did not respond
to throttle movements. "Better get ready for a
flameout landing, Linda," Vincenti told her.
"We're looking for two hundred knots landing
speed--it's gonna happen fast."
  "Just lost the engine, Also," McKenzie said.
Her voice was wooden, as if she were talking inside
a bucket.
  Vincenti knew that calm wouldn't last too long.
The toughest fighter pilots in the world get high,
squeaky voices when their air machines start to crap
out on them. "Okay, Linda, forget it," Vincenti
said.
  "We're committed for a flameout approach.
Check your JFS switch on START 2. Turn
off your FUEL MASTER switch.
  Got it .. . negative jfs RUN light,
Also.
  "Okay, forget it. Turn the starter off--we'll
try it again in a minute or so. We're
six miles out." They were surrounded by the city of
Sacramento, a vast shimmering expanse of lights
below them.
  Mcclellan was dead ahead, its rotating beacon
and runway lights plainly visible. They had it
made, but they still had a long way to go.
  "Check your air source knob on RAM and your
defog lever forward.
  Keep your touchdown point eleven to seventeen
degrees below the horizon. Stand by on the gear."
  "I'm ready, Also." Her glide path was
steady, right on Vincenti's left wing. Her jet was
a heavy toy glider right now. Actually, "glider"
was a misnomer for the F-16 Fighting Falcon--with
its short supercritical wings, the F-16 made
a lousy glider. But as long as you had airspeed and a
working E.p.u, though, a flameout landing was very
doable. Her H.u.d, or heads-up display, was
still operable, and the flight-path pipper was directly
on the end of the runway--all she had to do was keep the
pipper on the touchdown point and maneuver the fighter
to keep the pipper within 11 to 17 of the horizon. So
far it was going smoothly.
  "Five miles, Linda, lower the gear when you're
ready."
  "Coming down." She pressed the gear-permission
button and tried to move the gear lever downward--
nothing. "Gear handle won't move," she radioed.
She hit the DN LOCK REL button, which
mechanically allows the handle to be lowered--and she
got no safe gear indications. "No green
lights, Also."
  "I see your right gear, and a partial nose gear,"
Vincenti said.
  "Cycle the gear handle."
  McKenzie raised the gear handle, waited a
few seconds, pressed the DN LOCK REL
button, and lowered the handle. "Did it," she
radioed.
  "No red light, no green lights."
  "Four miles out. Use alternate extension.
Watch your airspeed, Linda, you're sinking.
Drop your nose a bit."
  "Copy." She made the proper attitude
correction. Three miles out--and the left landing gear
came into view. "What's it look like, Also?"
  "I got two main gear, no nose gear," he
said. "Your nose gear might come down below 190.
Let's go to thirteen AOA and get ready for
touchdown. Try your jfs to START "
once more, and secure your throttle.
  Glide path looks good, and you're cleared to land.
Nice job, Linda.
  Little bit more nose lip, you're at eleven
AOA."
  "She starts to get squirrelly below two
hundred," McKenzie said.
  "I want to keep my speed up until I'm
over the threshold."
  "Okay, but remember you might not have all your
brakes, and you have no speedbrakes," Vincenti
said. "Use aerodynamic braking all you can, and
use every inch of the runway. Go get "em, babe."
  "Thanks, Also," McKenzie said; then she
added, "We should've done it, Also, you know that,
don't you? It would've been sooo good."
  Leave it to Linda McKenzie to think about sex just
seconds before making a 220-mile-per-hour
flameout approach in the dark to a strange
airfield in a damaged F-16 fighter,
Vincenti thought grimly.
  He did not reply, because there was no time. With
Vincenti flying just a few feet above the right edge
of the runway, McKenzie hit the pavement,
traveling at 210 knots.
  .. . and the worst-case scenario happened.
  The nose gear never came down, but McKenzie
held the fighter's nose high in the air to let the
jet's fuselage create enough drag to slow down. A
stream of fire trucks began their chase after her
down the runway. Suddenly, Vincenti saw a
flash of light--sparks caused by the damaged right
fuel tank separating from the wing and dragging the
runway. The fighter's nose slammed hard into the
runway, then began to spin clockwise. Fire
erupted in the engine compartment and caught a glimpse
of two full burns of her seat's ejection
motors before he passed the runway and began his
climbout.
  "Foxtrot Romeo Zero One, this is
Mcclellan Tower, say your intentions.
  was Vincenti knew the runways would be closed at
Mcclellan and Mather, the two large military
capable airports in Sacramento. Metro
Airport was just a few miles away--they might
send him there, although the Air Force didn't like to send
armed combat aircraft to civil airports.
  Beale and Travis Air Force Bases were both
less than fifty miles away, and he had plenty
of fuel to make it all the way back
to Fresno Air Terminal. He wanted to see
Linda, wanted to stay with his flying partner. No
doubt they'd be convening an accident board, and as the
original flight leader and close chase plane
he'd be the star witness.
  Screw 'em, Vincent thought angrily. He
jammed the throttle to MIL power and keyed the
radio button: "Tower, Foxtrot Romeo-01
requesting handoff to Approach and vectors to the
suspect aircraft that just overflew Mather."
  "Roger, Foxtrot Romeo, stand by." The
wait did not last long: "Foxtrot
Romeo-01, your control requests you land at
Beale as soon as possible.
  You can contact Sacramento Approach on
one-one-nine point one."
  Vincenti turned his aircraft southwest-bound, not
northbound, and began searching the skies with radar for a
target.
  "Foxtrot Romeo-01, did you copy? You
are requested to land at Beale.
  Over."
  Vincenti cut off the tower controller's insistent
orders by tuning the radio to Sacramento Approach
Control's western sector frequency.
  "Sacramento Approach, Foxtrot
Romeo-01 with you climbing to six thousand, suspect
aircraft that overflew Mather, over."
  "Foxtrot Romeo-01, Sacramento
Approach, roger, last reported position of your
target is at one o'clock, approximately
fifty-three miles, altitude unknown. You are
leaving my airspace, contact Travis Approach
on one-two-seven point one-five."
  That wasn't much of a vector, but it was enough. A
minute later Vincent i picked up a low-flying
aircraft thirty-two miles to the west, at the
foot of the coastal mountains between Sacramento and
San Francisco, traveling at two hundred
knots at only a few hundred feet above the
terrain.
  That had to be Cazaux.
  He was trying to sneak away under local radar,
avoiding the TRACON (terminal Radar
Approach Control) center near Travis Air
Force Base.
  "Travis Approach, Foxtrot Romeo-01
requesting clearance to intercept the aircraft at my
twelve o'clock, thirty-one miles, with a
three-hundred-knot closure rate.
Over."
  Henri Cazaux's characteristically ice-cold heart
started to pump superheated lava through his veins as he
listened in on the exchange between the Air Force
fighter and the civilian radar controllers:
"Foxtrot Romeo-01, Travis Approach,
maintain two-fifty maximum airspeed, stay
clear of Travis class D airspace, and stand
by on your request."
  "The wingman is after us," Cazaux said to the
Stork. "I thought they'd both land after the bitch was
hit." He shrugged. "I was wrong."
  "He was ordered to land," the Stork said
incredulously. "He was ordered to land! Why is he
disobeying orders?"
  "Revenge," Cazaux said simply. "Something
I know all about.
  And this fighterjock, he smells revenge. This
pilot is the real leader, not the other. She was the
inexperienced one. This one ..
  .
  will not let us live. He will try to kill us."
  "Oh, great!" Jones moaned. "You mean that
Air Force jet's gonna flame us? What the
hell we gonna do?"
  "Foxtrot Romeo-01, Travis
Approach, sir, reduce speed and do not exceed
two-five-zero knots indicated, do you copy?"
they heard once again on the radio. "Reduce
speed now .. . leaving my airspace, Foxtrot
Romeo-01, contact Bay Approach on
one-two-seven point zero.
  How do you copy, Foxtrot Romeo-01?"
  "He ain't answerin" backea"...Jones said.
"What's he doin'?"
  Cazaux switched the radio to the same
frequency, which was the terminal radar controller for the
dozens of major airports in the San
Francisco Bay Area. Still no response, no
check-in. "This man, he is no longer taking
orders from either his superiors or the federal aviation
authorities," Cazaux said. "He is going
to pursue us until .
  .. the end game."
  "What the hell does that mean?" Jones shouted.
  "It means he's a renegade, you idiot. He
will put a two-second burst of cannon fire
into this aircraft, whether or not he receives orders to the
contrary," Cazaux said calmly. "That will be
approximately one hundred depleted
uranium shells about twice the size of your thumb,
weighing approximately one pound, hitting us with
supersonic force. He will blow this plane apart as
easily as a baby bursting a soap bubble .
  .. get it?"
  His eyes scanned out the window to the south, toward
San Francisco, Oakland, Alameda Naval
Air Station, Hayward, and Sanjose-the San
Franc lights of dozens of aircraft filled the
skies. Like gigantic strings of Christmas
lights, the airliners formed long sparking lines of
light in the sky, strung out for nearly a hundred
miles in all directions, all sequenced to land at
their various air terminals.
  Finally Cazaux said, "That way," and moved the
control yoke hard left and pushed, descending even
farther toward the dark, light-sparkled earth below.
  "What now, man?"
  "We cannot escape the pilot who pursues us,"
Cazaux said. "So perhaps we can force him to retreat
--if he will."
  "How you gonna do that?" But Krull soon
realized how. In just a few minutes, the answer was
obvious--they were heading right for San Francisco
International Airport, the locus of the
greatest number of those strings of light in the sky.
  He was heading directly into the airspace of one
of the busiest airports in the United States.
  "Oh, shit .. . you're gonna fly into the
middle of all that?"
  "It is the ultimate game of chicken,"
Cazaux said with a grin on his face, "the ultimate
game of Russian roulette." He changed his
radio frequency to Bay Approach, listening in as
the busy controllers vectored aircraft for landings
into Oakland, Martinez, Alameda, Hayward, and
San Francisco International. They were already
approaching the northern shore of San Pablo
Bay, with the city of Vallejo on their left and the
dark forested expanse of Marin County on their right,
illuminated by the lights of small communities
along Highway 101. Soon they were over San
Pablo Bay at one thousand feet, traveling
three miles per minute through the wispy fog and
haze.
  "Cactus Niner-Seventy-Three, traffic
alert, pop-up target, ten o'clock, three miles,
no altitude readout," they heard the controller at
Bay Approach call to another aircraft.
  "Nine-Seventy-Three, searching, no
joy," the pilot of the Southwest Airlines commuter,
a Boeing 737 airliner out of Oakland
International, responded. The pilot sounded bored.
Spurious radar targets caused by birds, fog,
smog, or high humidity were common in this area. At
night, airplanes had their lights on, and if it
didn't have lights on, it wasn't an airplane.
After all, who wanted to hit another plane in
midair?
  "There he is," Cazaux said, pointing out the
window, high and slightly to the right. The aircraft
could not be identified as to type, but there was no missing
it--it was ablaze in landing, recognition, position,
and anticollision lights. The turbofan-powered
airliner was much faster than Cazaux's L-600,
but he had the cutoff angle.
  Cazaux pulled back on the yoke and turned
left, putting the JET L-600 directly on
an intercept course, climbing above three thousand
feet.
  "Niner-Seven-Three, Bay Approach,
traffic appears to be maneuvering, now at eleven
o'clock, two miles."
  "Nine-Seventy-Three, still searching, no joy,"
came the reply.
  "He cannot see us," Cazaux said. He reached
down and flicked on his landin hts. "How about now?"
v "Nine-Seventy-Three has contact on the
traffic," the commuter pilot radioed. "Say his
altitude again?"
  "Still no Mode C on your traffic," the air
traffic controller responded. "You should be passing
in front of him."
  "Not so fast," Cazaux said. He turned farther
left to increase the cutoff angle, maintaining his
climb rate. "How about now?"
  "Collision alert, Cactus
Niner-Seven-Three, turn thirty degrees right
immediately!" the air traffic controller shouted over the
radio.
  The commuter plane's lights altered shape as the
plane turned.
  Cazaux laughed as he imagined what the
occupants on board that redeye flight were windows,
necks creaking in pain, coffee splashing, flight
attendants scrambling for balance.
  "That bastard turned right into me!" the pilot of the
commuter plane shouted, forgetting proper radio
discipline. "Bay Approach, be advised, that guy
turned right into me. I want his tail
number and controller tapes!"
  "Roger, Cactus Niner-Seven-Three, I have
your request, contact Bay Approach now on
one-three-five point four. Break. Aircraft
on the three-zero-zero degree radial, twelve
DME fix from Oakland VOR, be advised, you are
entering San Francisco Class B and Oakland
Class C airspace without a clearance, and you have
entered the thirty-mile Mode C veil without a
Mode C readout. Remain clear of Class
B and C airspace and contact Bay Approach
on one-two-seven point zero.
  Acknowledge."
  Henri Cazaux laughed. "Oh, this is
perfect, perfect!" he cackled.
  "We coulda gotten killed, you crazy
motherfucker," Krull said, shaking his head.
  "Mr. Krull, our death warrants were signed the
second I heard that Air Force pilot's voice
on the radio," Cazaux said, stone-serious.
  "He wants revenge, and he is willing to ruin
his career in order to get it. We are fighting for our
lives." Then, just as quickly as it had gone away, the
broad smile was back. "And if I am
fortunate, I will take a few American
citizens out with me before we die."
  With that, he turned the LET L-600 back
toward San Francisco and began another
descent, aiming right for the international airport itself.
  "Foxtrot Romeo-01, radar contact, ten
miles southwest of Travis Air Force Base,"
the military air defense controller SIERRA
PETE reported.
  Through a massive communications and radar relay
network, military controllers from southern
California could talk to and track on radar all
military interceptors anywhere. "You should have been
relayed instructions for landing at Beale, sir. Are
you experiencing difficulty?"
  .
  , .
  "Negative, SIERRA PETE," Vincenti
replied. "Who's the senior director
tn"...John? Marie?"
  "This is Colonel Berrell, Alsoea"...John
Berrell responded, cutting in on the Weapon
Control Team channel. "I'm the SD, and
Bravo is on the floor as well." Bravo was the
code name for the deputy director of the Southwest
Air Defense Sector, Navy
Captain Francine Tellman.
  "What in hell are you doing? I ordered you to land
at Beale for a debriefing."
  "John, I want permission to engage
Cazaux's plane over the bay," Vincent i
said.
  "Say again, Foxtrot Romeo?"
  "You heard me, John," Vincenti said in a
calm, even voice.
  "Cazaux's driving directly at San
Francisco International. He's flying right into the
path of the arriving and departing traffic--he made one
airliner almost do a backflip trying to avoid a
midair. I believe he's got another load of
explosives on board that cargo plane, and that
he's going to drop them somewhere--on the city, on the
airport, I don't know where. I've got a
judy on him, about thirteen miles rrh f CF)
r c the 13av Bridge into San Francisco
Bay in about one minute. I want permission to bring
him down as soon as .
  A " he crosses the Bay Bridae.
Over."
  disi .
  y "Also, I can't upchannel that,"
Berrell said. "I know how much i you want
Cazaux .. ."
  - There was silence for a moment; then, a woman's
voice came on the channel: "Foxtrot
Romeo-01, this is Bravo." Vincenti
recognized Francine Tellman's cutting,
no-nonsense voice immediately. "I'm ordering you
to land at Beale Air Force Base immediately.
  Acknowledge and comply. Over."
  "If you want Henri Cazaux, Francine,
I can take him. Just give me permission."
  "You've got your orders, Foxtrot
Romeo-01. Comply with them or I'll
court-martial you the minute you step off that plane.
And you had better start using proper radio
procedures."
  "Francine," Vincenti said, ignoring her last
request, "he tried to ram an airliner, and now
he's headed right for the stream of arrivals
into S.f.o."
  "I can see that, Vincenti, we're tracking him
as well," Tellman said.
  Obviously she gave up trying to use proper
radio discipline as well.
  "I also know that you've violated almost as
many federal air regulations as Cazaux has.
Bay and Travis TRACON and Oakland Center
are screaming bloody murder about you blasting through their
airspace.
  Now get the hell out of there and land at Beale."
There was a slight pause, then she added,
"Please." Vincenti alternately loosened and
tightened his grip on the control stick. This was the
turning point, he thought. He was still outside San
Francisco Class B airspace, and he could
easily climb above eight thousand feet to get above
the airspace to stay legal. If Cazaux tried
something, he'd still be in a position to act. He
considered doing the old "radio-out" routine--go
radio-out, squawk emergency, then turn everything
back on when Cazaux was safely away from
traffic-and as long as he stuck to his story they'd
have to believe him.
  But either way, Henri Cazaux would be getting
away with murder.
  "I can't do it, Francine," Vincenti said.
  "Cut the crap, Vincenti," Tellman hissed
angrily. "Stay out of the Class B airspace.
That's an order. Don't trash a long and
successful career because of Cazaux. You
did your job. Break off your pursuit, now. If
there's another incident because of you busting into B
airspace, I won't be able to keep you out of
Leavenworth."
  Vincenti swore loudly into his oxygen mask.
Cazaux was about twenty miles ahead of him, flying
just north of Treasure Island. In less than a
minute he'd be over the San Francisco
E3ay Bridge. He could turn right and be over
the city of San Francisco in another minute,
or over the Golden Gate Bridge in three
minutes; or continue straight ahead for four
minutes and be over San Francisco International
Airport, not knowing which way it was going to go, praying
it would go one way but not the other.
  "Vincenti .. . Al," Tellman tried
once more, "break off your pursuit, now."
  "Damn you all to hellea"...Vincenti muttered as
he shoved in full afterburner and pulled the nose
skyward. In sixty seconds, he was level at
eighty-five hundred feet, above the San
Francisco Class B airspace and on the
proper hemispheric altitude for his direction of
flight. He was flying above the city of Richmond and
barreling toward Oakland when Cazaux
crossed the Bay Bridge, heading directly for
San Francisco. On his backup VHF
radio, he called, "Bay Approach,
Foxtrot Romeo-01 on one-two-seven point
zero, F-16 active air intercept, level
eight thousand five hundred, ten miles north of
Oakland VOR, requesting Class B clearance,
vectors to intercept unidentified aircraft
crossing west of the Bay Bridge, and requesting
speed to four-zero-zero knots, over."
  "Foxtrot Romeo-01, Bay Approach,
unable your request," the air traffic controller
responded. "I don't show you as an active air
intercept--I'll have to check with your air defense
sector people.
  Squawk four-three-zero-zero, maintain
present course and altitude, remain clear of
San Francisco Class B airspace.
Break. United Three-seventy-Two, turn
left heading one-five-zero and slow to your approach
speed for separation. Amflight
Two-Zero-Niner-Niner, keep your speed up,
sir, traffic at your seven o'clock, three miles,
an unidentified aircraft, altitude unknown
.. ."
  The stress in the controller's voice was painfully
obvious, and Vincent i knew why. As soon as
he heard a break, Cazaux interjected,
"Approach, my target is that unidentified
aircraft, and I've got him tied on radar.
Let me intercept him and I'll try to get him out
of your arrival pattern, over."
  "Several aircraft talking at once, everyone
please shut up and listen," the irritated controller
said. "Foxtrot Romeo-01, I said unable,
maintain your present course and stay clear of the
Class B airspace.
  Delta Fourteen, turn left heading
two-zero-zero, descend to five thousand, vectors
for VOR runway one-niner left arrival.
  United Eight-Twenty-Two, descend and
maintain six thousand .. ."
  It was impossible to cut through the rapid-fire
controller's instructions. Vincenti thought about doing a
rapid descent and dropping right on Cazaux's
tail, but now it was far too dangerous--the closer
Cazaux was to San Francisco International, the
more aircraft he was mixing around, and the harder it would be
to stay away from the traffic.
  Well, he had done at least part of
what he was ordered to do-stop the pursuit--but he
wasn't ready to give up on Henri Cazaux.
  Vincenti still had an hour of fuel to burn, and
plenty of suitable bases nearby to choose from.
Better wait up here, clear of all the traffic and
confusion, and watch to see what the maniac Cazaux
had in mind.
  On his backup radio--no use in listening
to Francine Tellman and the rest of the Southwest
Air Defense Sector yell at him--he
switched over to San Francisco Tower and set
up an orbit above the Class B airspace so
he could watch Cazaux on radar. He felt
completely useless, orbiting thousands of feet above
his prey, but there was absolutely nothing he could do
except listen to the horrible tragedy unfold below
him.
  "Unidentified aircraft over the port of
San Francisco, this is San Francisco
Tower on GUARD," the frantic tower controller
radioed on the VHF emergency frequency. "You
have entered Oakland Class C airspace without
proper radio callup, and you are on course to enter
San Francisco Class B airspace without
a clearance. There are numerous aircraft
departing San Francisco at your twelve o'clock
position."
  The controller tried a different tactic: he
decided to assume that the pilot of the aircraft was in
trouble--perhaps it was the wife flying after her husband had
a heart attack, or a kid had stolen a plane
to go for a joyride and was aiming for the biggest airport
he could see.
  No use trying to threaten him or her-better
to offer plenty of options while protecting the
airspace and the legitimate aircraft already in it.
  "You must execute a
one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and fly away
from San Francisco because there are a lot of very big
airliners in your vicinity and you could get hurt," the
controller said, trying hard to control his anxiety and
anger. "If you can hear me, it is important that
you turn around and head back towards the north bay
or toward Sacramento, right now. You don't have
to reply, just turn away from San Francisco
until we can get some of these planes out of your
way, and then we can help you get oriented .. .
TWA Five-Eighty-One, roger, report the
outer marker .. . Unidentified aircraft flying
over the Seagram's sign heading towards
San Francisco Airport, you must turn away
right now .. . American Three-Seventy-two,
traffic alert, two o'clock, altitude unknown,
NORDO aircraft in Class B airspace,
stay with me until you're clear and be prepared
to maneuver .. . Delta Four-Twenty-Two,
I can't give you that, we've got NORDO VFRIEND
traffic in the area, unless you declare an emergency
I'm going to have to send you back to FAITH intersection
for the I.l.s .. ."
  Vincenti dropped his oxygen mask in absolute
frustration. The air traffic situation around San
Francisco and Oakland was going haywire, all
because of one madman.
  He had to do something!
  He refastened his mask and keyed his mike:
"San Francisco Tower, Foxtrot
Romeo-01, over the Bay Bridge at eight
thousand five hundred, be advised that VFRIEND
NORDO aircraft is at one thousand feet. He
is a LET L-600 cargo plane piloted by a
suspected terrorist. I strongly suggest you hold
all departures on the ground, divert all
arrivals, and let me take care of the bastard.
Over."
  .
  1: : i .
  The radios were completely, utterly silent after
that--it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the
San Francisco Bay area. The word
"terrorist" had that effect on people, and now his reign
of terror was being felt here, now.
  Finally, after what seemed like a very long time, the
tower controller radioed, "Roger, Foxtrot
Romeo-01, San Francisco Tower copies,
stand by." It was not the same "stand by" issued by the
other controllers, which in effect meant "don't bother
me"--this "stand by" meant "wait while I clear a
path for you."
  "United Twelve-Ohfour, cancel takeoff
clearance. Delta Five-Niner-Eight, hold your
position. TWA Five-Eighty-One, go around,
contact Bay Approach.
  Delta Fourteen, go around, stay with me until
advised. Attention all aircraft, emergency
air traffic operations in effect, expect
delays.
  Amflight Two-Zero-Niner-Niner, clear
to land, keep your speed up on final and land past the
intersection of runway one-niner right.
  Foxtrot Romeo-01, you are radar contact,
one-one miles north of the San Francisco
VOR at eight thousand five hundred, what are
your intentions?"
  "Foxtrot Romeo-01 requesting emergency
descent through Class B airspace at
five-zero-zero knots and MARSA operations with the
suspect aircraft," Vincenti replied.
"MARSA" stood for "military accepts
responsibility for separation of aircraft," and
although it usually applied only to military formation
flights or aerial refueling, Vincenti wanted
to use it to intercept Cazaux.
  "Roger, Foxtrot Romeo-01," the tower
controller said. Although air traffic control tower
controllers rarely issued clearances other than
"cleared for takeoff" and "cleared to land," this was
obviously an unusual and dangerous situation.
"You are cleared to descend through Class B
airspace at your most expeditious airspeed to the
block surface to two thousand feet within five
nautical mile radius of San Francisco
VOR, and you are cleared MARSA with the NORDO
aircraft. Stay on this frequency."
  "Roger," Vincenti replied--just before
he pulled hard on his control stick in a tight
loop. When he emerged from the loop, he was just south
of the Bay Bridge in a
fifteen-thousand-foot-per-minute descent, heading
"down the ramp" right at San Francisco
International Airport.
  There were very few aircraft on his radar scope,
and only one aircraft near San Francisco
International was not transmitting any air traffic
transponder codes--that had to be Cazaux.
  "Foxtrot Romeo-01 is tied on radar and
accepts MARSA with unidentified aircraft,"
Vincenti radioed. "I suggest you get on the
radio and try to get Oakland to keep its planes
on the ground, too. I don't think it'll be safe
for any other planes to be flying around over San
Francisco Bay right about now."
  "Say that last transmission again, Foxtrot
Romeo-01 .. . ?"
  San Francisco Tower called. But there was no
reply.
  Taddele Korhonen, at the controls of the LET
L-600, had pushed the throttles up to full
power, and they were skimming across the top of the piers,
docks, and warehouses of the Port of San
Francisco, west and south of the Bay Bridge.
"Why the hell we flyin" so low to the city?"
  Jefferson "Krull" Jones asked. He and
Henri Cazaux were in the cargo bay of the
L-600, removing some of the packets of money and
cocaine from the second pallet. "You gonna drop
all those explosives on San Francisco,
too?"
  "Of course not," Cazaux replied. "The loss
of the Stinger missiles was regrettable and will dearly
affect my business, but all is not lost if I can
salvage the explosives and ammunition. Besides,
we are still flying. As long as we're airborne,
there is hope."
  Suddenly, the chatter on the air traffic control
channel seemed to cease. The quiet caught
Cazaux's attention as easily as a loud
gunshot. Then he heard, "Roger, Foxtrot
Romeo-01, San Francisco Tower copies,
stand by .. . United Twelve-Oh-Four, cancel
takeoff clearance. Delta Five-Niner-Eight,
hold your position. TWA Five-eighty-One, go
around, contact Bay Approach .. ."
  "What the hell is going' on?" Jones asked.
"Sounds like they're clearin' everybody out."
  "That is exactly what they're doing," Cazaux
said. "But why?"
  "Attention all aircraft, emergency air
traffic operations in effect, expect delays.
Amflight Two-Zero-Niner-Niner, clear to land,
keep your speed up on final and land past the
intersection of runway one-niner right. Foxtrot
Romeo-01, you are radar contact, one-one miles
north of the San Francisco VOR at eight
thousand five hundred, what are your intentions?"
  "Foxtrot Romeo-01 requesting emergency
descent through Class B airspace at
five-zero-zero knots and MARSA operations with the
suspect aircraft," came the reply.
  "Foxtrot Romeo Zero One .. . that's the
damn fighter again!" Jones said. "Man, he's
back on our tail!"
  "They will never give him a clearance to descend at
five hundred knots through dense airspace like this,"
Cazaux said.
  "Impossible."
  "Roger, Foxtrot Romeo-01, you are
cleared to descend through Class B airspace at
your most expeditious airspeed to the block
surface to two thousand feet within five
nautical mile radius of San Francisco
VOR, and you are cleared MARSA with the NORDO
aircraft.
  Stay on this frequency."
  "Jesus, they just gave him carte blanche,"
Cazaux said, stunned.
  "A tower controller is not authorized to give such
a clearance!"
  "Well, he just did it," Jones sneered. "And
now he's gonna be gunnin' for our asses. What
the hell we gonna do now?"
  Cazaux looked like a balloon that was pricked
with a pin and was slowly losing air.
  For the first time, Jones saw real depression, real
defeat in his face.
  He stared out the open end of the L-600 as if he
could see the F-16 diving down on them, could see
the cannon muzzle flashing, could see the heavy
20-millimeter shells peppering him and his plane.
"We can surrender, man," Jones continued.
"Tell him we give up. It's better than
dyin," man."
  "I will never give up!" Cazaux said
emphatically. "I will never surrender!" He went
over to the intercom panel and hit the mike
button: "Stork, fly over San Francisco
International Airport, right over the terminal
buildings." The L-600 banked left and
descended in response. Cazaux switched the
intercom switch to the VHF radio: "Attention,
F-16 fighter, this is Henri Cazaux. I have
several thousand pounds of explosives on board this
aircraft, and I will release them on San
Francisco International Airport unless you
depart this area."
  "You'll be dead long before you reach the airport,
Cazaux," a voice said over the frequency. "I
show you two minutes to the airport, and I'm in
missile range right now." Vincenti hoped the
bluff would work--he wasn't carrying any
missiles at all, and he wouldn't be in optimum
gun range for another thirty to forty seconds.
  "Jettison the explosives right now, into the
bay, and then fly away from the airport straight
down the bay. After that, I'll direct you to make a
turn over the bay north, and we'll land at
Alameda Naval Air Station." To Jones,
Cazaux shouted, "Get that second pallet ready
to drop." On the radio, he asked, "How do I
know you will not kill me after I do all that you
order?"
  "I'm not giving you any guarantees, you
sonofabitch, except this--if I don't see your
course altered away from land, you'll be dead in three
seconds. What's it going to be?"
  "Very well, I am dumping the explosives
overboard right now.
  Do not fire your missiles." He motioned
to Krull, and he and the big loader pushed the second
pallet of military gear out the cargo ramp, just a
few hundred yards east of Fullers Point,
north of the airport.
  Cazaux then picked up the microphone and
switched to intercom: "Stork, decrease speed and
execute a turn back to the north .. .
  and then turn directly towards San
Francisco International again and go to full
throttle." Back on VHF: "All right, I have
done as you asked.
  I have dropped the explosives, and I am
turning north. Hold your fire.
  I broadcast my surrender to all who can hear
my voice on this frequency. I am surrendering
to the United States Air Force, for assurances that
I will not be fired upon. You are all my
witnesses in case there is a so-called unfortunate
accident."
  "You gonna do it?" Jones shouted over the
windblast and the roar of the engines through the open cargo
ramp. "You gonna drop the last pallet on
San Francisco International? Holy shit!
He'll put a missile up our asses for sure
.. . Jesus, mother of god .. ."
  "If he had missiles, he would have killed us
long ago," Cazaux decided. "He has only
guns, like the first fighter. I believe he will wait
until we fly down the center of San
Francisco Bay, then open fire. I am hoping
he cannot follow us if we slow down and turn. No
one threatens me and gets away with it." He
dropped the microphone, then went over to a rack with
several backpack-style parachutes and pulled
Francisco International, then parachute
to safety. The Stork will put the plane on
autopilot and join us."
  "We're not dropping anything," Jones said. As
Cazaux began fastening his parachute harness, Jones
reached down and pulled a small automatic pistol
from an ankle holster. "Hold your hands straight out
from your sides and turn around."
  "What is this?" Cazaux asked, a trace of
amusement in his eyes.
  "U.s. Marshal, Cazauxea"...Jones said. He
retrieved a wallet from a back pocket,
flipped it open to reveal a five-pointed star, and
tucked the wallet in his belt. "You're under arrest,
motherfucker. I said turn around."
  "If you fire that gun in here, Marshal jones, you
will blow us all to hell."
  "It would be worth it to watch you die, Cazaux,"
Jones said.
  "Step away from there, across the plane, facing the
wall. Move."
  As Cazaux moved slowly in front of the third
pallet toward the left side of the cargo bay,
Jones reached the intercom panel: "Stork, this is
Jones. Don't turn back towards San
Francisco. Fly north down the middle of the
bay. I'm a federal marshal, and you're under arrest.
  If you turn towards land, I'll--" Suddenly
the LET L-600 seemed as if it flipped
completely upside down. Korhonen had thrown the
plane into a steep left bank, causing jones
to lose his balance for just a few seconds--but that was more
than enough time for Cazaux. With incredible
speed, Cazaux knelt under jones's first bullet,
withdrew a Walther PPK automatic pistol from his
right boot, dodged a second shot fired at him
by throwing himself aft toward the open cargo ramp, then
opened fire on Jones. He missed his intended
target--Jones's heart--but he managed several
shots into the big man's chest and one in the head.
  The undercover U.s. marshal fired several more
shots at Cazaux before he dropped, still fighting
even as he was dying.
  "I have got to get out of this damned business. The
authorities are practically in bed with me."
Cazaux tried to clear his head and get to his
feet. One bullet had hit him in the left leg,
creasing across his calf and ankle. Walking on it was
difficult, but he ignored the burning pain, made
his way forward and said to Korhonen, "Good job,
Stork. I knew I could depend on you. You're
one of the few in my organization I can trust."
  "Thank you, sir," the Stork said, showing two
grimy rows of teeth.
  "I am getting a fluctuating oil pressure
on the number two engine, sir. I think one of your
shots hit the right engine. We have perhaps ten
minutes" time before I have to shut down.
What are your orders?"
  "One last act of revenge, and we will get out of
this place, take the money, and go into hiding in
Mexico," Cazaux said. He pointed at San
Francisco International and said, "Fly right over
the main terminal building, Stork. Dive right for
it, then pitch up at the last moment.
  I will get the pallet ready to drop. After that,
fly her south along the coast at medium
altitude, set the autopilot, and we'll bail
out together. We will make our way to the central
valley and make contact with our Mexican agents.
Thank you again, old friend." He clasped Korhonen
on the shoulder once again, then returned to the cargo
bay.
  But it wasn't going to happen, Cazaux
realized.jones's body was lying across the rear
deck, directly in the path of the one remaining
pallet, blocking the cargo ramp opening, and as hard
as he tried, he couldn't move the
three-hundred-plus-pound corpse. The
explosives weren't going anywhere.
  He shrugged, checked that his PPK was secure in
its boot holster, stuffed a few bundles of cash
into his fatigue shirt, tightened up his
parachute straps, and hefted two of the remaining hand
grenades.
  "Thanks again, Stork," he said to no one. "You
were a good pilot." He then popped the safety pins
off the grenades, tossed them atop the last pallet
filled with explosives, and ran out the open cargo
ramp, pulling his parachute D-ring as he cleared
the ramp.
  Taddele Korhonen was well above redlined on
both engines and at the plane's structural redlined
as he careened through three hundred feet, aiming right
for the main commercial terminal at San Francisco
International--what was the worry about overstressing the
plane, he reasoned, when they were apparently going
to ditch it?
  Coming in from the northeast, he was lined up with
runways 1 91
  and 191 and offset a bit to the north. The
taxiways on the X-shaped airport were dotted with
airliners waiting to depart, and the entire circular
main terminal building was choked with airliners and
service trucks.
  As the center of the largest part of the main terminal
building almost touched the cargo plane's nose, the
Stork clicked twice on the intercom
to let his master know they had arrived, then began
to pull up into a steep climb .. .
  The first explosion did not seem too loud, and
since Korhonen was concentrating on the pullout, he
ignored it.
  Then his ears registered a second loud bang! and
then another explosion a hundred times louder and more
powerful.
  He had a brief sensation of intense heat on the
back of his head before his body, and the rest of the LET
L-600 cargo plane, was blasted apart by the sheer
force of over two tons of high-explosives
detonating at once.
  Damn it, Vincenti cursed, he knew
Cazaux was going to pull something like this. Shit! It was
the same act he pulled with McKenzie: beg for
surrender, then turn, attack, and run. Well,
he wasn't going to get away with it. He was
determined to kill Henri Cazaux.
  Vincenti had bluffed a bit about how far away
he was and about carrying missiles, but he wasn't
bluffing about wanting to see Cazaux dead.
  That was real.
  Unfortunately, he wasn't in the best position
to attack.
  When Cazaux turned away from San
Francisco International, Vincenti found himself
relaxing, momentarily confident that he'd won--and then
he found himself high and fast, unable to stay with
Cazaux's slow-flying cargo plane without burying
the nose and risking a crash into San Francisco
Bay. He had no choice but to pull the throttle
to idle, pop speedbrakes, and widen his turn beyond
radar lock-on. Cazaux had turned his lights
on when he dumped the cargo overboard--Vincenti
did not believe for a moment that Cazaux had
willingly dumped all his deadly cargo--so it was
easy to keep him in sight as he closed in on him.
But when Cazaux tightened his turn, shut off his
lights, and headed back for San Francisco
International again, Vincenti found himself ten seconds
out of position and without a solid contact. He
reacquired Cazaux's plane a few seconds
later, but by then Cazaux was over the airport at
high speed. Just as Vincenti put his gun pipper
on the radar return and got an IN RANGE
readout on his heads-up display, the cargo plane's
nose began to pitch up, and .. .
  And then the LET L-600 disappeared in an
immense blinding ball of fire.
  Vincenti had a brief glimpse of a small
flash of light inside the cargo bay, like a
flashbulb or the muzzle blast of a rifle,
followed immediately by a huge explosion that completely
obscured the main airport terminal and
effectively blinded the veteran fighter pilot.
  Vincenti shoved in full military power,
retracted speedbrakes, pulled the nose of his
F-16 A.d.f up, fed in afterburner power, and
climbed away from the fireball. He had no way
of knowing in what direction he was headed or what his
airspeed was, but altitude was life right now.
  When Vincenti's vision cleared a few moments
later, he leveled off and set up an orbit over
San Francisco International. He couldn't
believe the carnage. The flaming wreckage of the
L-600 had hit the central terminal, showering the
control tower and the entire western half of the terminal
with fire and debris. The entire multistory
central terminal looked as if it was on fire, just
seconds after the impact.
  The wreckage had spread across the center of the
circular terminal, engulfing hundreds of cars and
buses in the inner departure and arrival rea. The
impact pattern formed a gigantic fiery
teardrop covering several hundred feet, all the
way across the inner-terminal circle to the south
terminal. Burning aircraft at the gates were
setting other nearby planes on fire with incredible
speed, like a candle flame being passed from person
to person by touching wicks.
  Soon Vincenti could count about a dozen planes
on fire near the impact point. Several
explosions could be seen through the dense jet-fuel
smoke, with great mushrooms of fire billowing into the
sky very close to Vincenti's altitude over the
airport .. .
  And then he saw it, plainly illuminated by the
intense fire below--a parachute, less than half
a mile away and no more than a few hundred feet
below his altitude.
  Incredibly, someone had bailed out of that cargo
plane seconds before it exploded .. .
  Henri Cazaux! Without thinking, Vincenti
turned toward the rapidly falling white dot,
nearly going inverted to keep the parachute in sight.
Cazaux obviously heard the fighter fly nearby,
could probably see the position and anticollision
lights, because the "chute started falling even faster.
Cazaux had grabbed the two right risers of
his parachute and pulled them down, spilling air out the
left side of his canopy, increasing his descent
rate, and sending him into a wide, violent left
spin.
  Vincenti didn't know if it was planned or not,
but Cazaux was too late.
  The intense fire at the terminal, less than a
thousand feet away, was buoying his parachute up in the
ain-he was a sitting duck.
  Vincenti had to shove his fighter's nose to the
ground to get lined up .. . and just as he did line
up his shot, a rescue or news helicopter
popped up in the middle of his H.u.d, less
than two hundred feet away.
  He had to bank hard left and pull to miss the
helicopter, and he lost sight of Cazaux
immediately. By the time Vincenti could roll out and look for
Cazaux's 'chute, the terrorist was on the ground
and moving.
  Vincenti had a brief thought about trying a strafing
run, but now the entire area near the crash site was
choked with rescue aircraft and vehicles. Flying
down into that melee would be very dangerous. He could do
nothing else but climb above the San Francisco
Class B airspace and head back
to Beale Air Force Base, and the inquisition that he
knew would face him there.
  The two crewmen from the Coast Guard Air
Station just north of San Francisco International
Airport couldn't believe their eyes as they watched
the medium cargo plane plow into the central terminal
--it looked like the aftermath of an oil-refinery
explosion or a replay of a successful bomb
strike during the Persian Gulf War.
  They heard the low-flying cargo plane as it
buzzed their hangar, and they saw it explode and
crash into the terminal as they watched.
  The entire airport seemed to be waist-deep in
fire so hot that it could be felt from inside their
pickup truck nearly a half-mile away.
  But even the explosion and devastation itself were nothing
compared to their surprise as a lone parachutist
dropped into the grassy field bordering the
airport's outer security fence. "Jesus Christ
.. .
  did that guy jump out of that cargo plane?" one
of the Coast Guardsmen asked.
  "He's gotta be the luckiest sonofabitch in the
world," the other said.
  "He got out of the plane in time, and he
missed that fence by inches.
  He looks pretty bad." They drove over,
found the man lying faceup in the grass, just a few
feet from the security fence. One seaman went over
to him while the other set to work deflating the parachute
so it wouldn't drag him into the bay. "Hey,
Todd," the first seaman shouted over the roar of the
nearby explosions and fire, "we got a radio in
the--" The second seaman couldn't hear his buddy
over the sounds of sheer devastation at the airport.
A few fire trucks from the Coast Guard base
were racing toward the terminal, but they were too far away
and moving too fast to flag down. "Say again, Will?"
No reply.
  He managed to collapse the billowing parachute,
then turned to his partner: "What did you say?"
  His buddy Will was lying on the ground just a few
feet away, the entire top of his head blown off.
The parachutist was standing beside the second seaman, a
gun pointed at his face. He saw a bright flash
of light and barely registered a loud bang.l, then
nothing.
  Henri Cazaux unbuckled his parachute harness,
rolled up the parachute, and threw it into the storage
area behind the seat of the pickup truck so it
wouldn't be easily spotted. He then collected the
Coast Guardsmen's ID cards, found a jacket
and cap that fit him, and started up the pickup
truck. He followed the line of emergency
vehicles heading toward San Francisco
International via the parallel taxiways.
  Then, when he saw it was clear, he drove away
off the airport.
  He was challenged once by an airport security
guard who enlisted his help in trying to control
traffic as thousands of persons tried to flee the
carnage. The security guard was shot in the face as
well.
  Henri Cazaux's killing spree did not stop
at San Francisco Airport. He killed
two more persons, stole two more cars, made his way
undetected through central California, then risked
taking an early morning plane from Stockton
to Phoenix. Sensing that federal marshals and sec the
plane, Cazaux told the flight attendants he
had lost some jewelry under the seats, waited until
the airliner cleaning service workers arrived at the
plane, executed two workers and slipped away out
the rear exit dressed in their overalls and using their
ID badges.
  A few hours after sunrise, after stealing another
car, he was safely across the border in Nogales.
Shortly after that he could be in one of his many hideouts
in Mexico, safe from all but a determined
paramilitary assault--but he did not want
to stop. Each time, the vision of his cargo plane
crashing into San Francisco International's
central terminal flashed in his mind, and he smiled
a sort of twisted, pathological smile. He
knew he wanted to see that kind of pure destruction
again very, very soon. It was one way to get even with the
U.s. Air Force, the Marshals, the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the entire
United States fucking government. There was so much
the Americans had to pay for: torture, false
imprisonment, rape, assault, robbery, perjury
--those were just the least of their crimes against Henri
Cazaux over the years. And as those years went by,
Cazaux could add murder, conspiracy, malicious
prosecution, and numerous additional counts of
perjury and contempt of court.
  And Cazaux knew the United States would never
be formally charged and tried for any of these crimes, so
he would issue the punishment himself. Cazaux's
justice was in his heart, his mind, his
weapons, and his aircraft.
  The Americans had worked to almost put him out of
business, permanently. That was going to end. America
had yet to feel the fury of a full-scale attack
by Henri Cazaux. Now it was time. Cazaux
wanted to see America bleed, and attacking its
most important and yet most terrifying institution
--its air traffic and air travel system-was
going to be the way to do it. It was so easy, and yet it
was going to be so devastating .. .
  It had been a long time since Henri Cazaux
had been in an American commercial airport
terminal--international terrorists rarely travel
by commercial air unless speed is a necessity--and
what he saw surprised him. No one, he thought,
would consider spending one second longer than necessary in
a bus station, or taxi stand, or train station, but
modern airports seemed to cater to travelers who
obviously spent a great deal of time there. Even
relatively small Phoenix-Sky Harbor
International Airport had fancy restaurants,
video arcades, bookstores, hotels, an art
museum, meeting and exercise rooms, even a
small amusement park with putt-putt golf and
miniature movie theaters right on the
airport premises. While Cazaux was busy
moving from one restroom to another every fifteen minutes
until his flight was called, trying to stay
incognito, he noticed people that seemed to hang around,
enjoying themselves like tourists. It was crazy .. .
  .. . but what an inviting target. This place was
packed!
  There were dozens of planes parked at the gates,
with thousands of persons choking the terminal. One bomb
in the center of this place could kill hundreds,
injure hundreds, destroy perhaps billions of
dollars of airplanes and property. But it would
take a thousand pounds of explosives, maybe more,
to do the kind of damage he needed to do, and he couldn't
truck that much nitro all the way into the heart of the
terminal .. .
  .. . but he could drop the explosives on the
terminal, just like he did at Mather Jetport and
San Francisco International. The Americans
had no defense against an aerial assault.
Yes, there were air defense fighters, but they were
only a few units scattered around the periphery
of the country. The FBI, perhaps even the military,
would eventually crack down on all unidentified
or unauthorized flights, but it would take
many days to shut down America's enormous air
traffic system, and once shut down it would surely
crush the American way of life. Until then,
he could take an incredible toll on these mindless
Americans.
  Three attacks, all in less than a week,
and he was certain that America would fall to its
knees.
  It would take lots of planning, and money, and that
meant a trip back east, to his American
headquarters in New Jersey--the Owl's Nest--
to meet with his senior staff to plan the operations. But
more importantly, he needed to know if his dreams of
destroying America from within was possible. Again, the
answer was in the east, in Newburgh, New York.
Only one person could advise him on how
to proceed, and he needed to see her as soon as
possible.
  Cazaux remained in his Mexican stronghold in
Nogales long enough to disguise himself, effortlessly aging
thirty years with simple makeup and posture
techniques, then used his forged American
passport and boarded a flight from Nogales
to Albuquerque. Security was loose and there was no
sign of pursuit, and booking a flight
to Chicago and beyond was easy. No one gave the bent,
alcoholic, emaciated-looking old man more than
a passing glance as he boarded the next plane.
  New York City August 1995 When his
executive assistant found Harold G. Lake,
the first thought he had was, My God, he's going
to jump.
  The sealed high-rise windows designed to keep the
heat and the odor and the noises of Manhattan out were
triplepaned tempered glass, so, of course, it
wasn't possible for Lake to jump (from here at
least) unless he had a sledgehammer hidden in his
closet. But it was the way Lake looked that
worried Ted Fell, Harold Lake's
attorney, executive assistant, and--if
anyone could properly be so categorized--friend and
confidant, Harold Lake. He was a brooder
even on his best days, and he could be depressing most
days.
  Today, the tall, dark, slim entrepreneur,
investor, and Wall Street trader looked like a
dog left out in the rain all night.
  "Got those letters of intent ready for your
signature," Fell reported.
  "I see no problems at all with the
debt restructuring.
  The next few weeks should be okay. We're in
the clear." Fell set a small pile of papers
on Lake's desk, the only item on the
expansive and empty marble and mahogany desk that
looked out of place. Lake continued to stare out the
huge picture window of his downtown Park Avenue
office into the gray steamy overcast. It was already 80
degrees in the city, and threatening to hit 90-plus
with 90-plus-percent humidity--one might actually
be cool and comfortable standing Ollt on a
forty-first-story ledge right now, thought wyly.
  "You got my notes there on top, but I got a
few minutes to talk about the deal if you--"
  "Who did the deal?" Lake asked. When Fell
hesitated that extra moment, Lake replied for
him: "Universal. Shit.
  What'd you get?"
  His voice was uncharacteristically uneven, with a trace
of his native New Jersey accent mixed in, even
after years of trying to excuse it.
  "Universal Equity offered us ten-point-one
percent," Fell said quickly.
  Lake irritably rubbed his eyes, moved toward
the papers as if to confirm what Fell said
was true, then sat back in his high-backed black
leather chair and continued to stare out the window.
  The president and founder of Universal Equity
Services, Limited, based in Glasgow,
Scotland, was Brennan Mcsorley, one of the world's
richest men, owner of the largest nonpublic investment
group in the world.
  Mcsorley had his fingers in hundreds of different
pies all over the world, everything from oil and gas
to banking to shipping to computers.
  He and Lake, Mcsorley's one-time disciple,
had done business many times in the past, although their
version of "business" nowadays was akin to calling the
U.s. Civil War a "disagreement."
Mcsorley was like a giant stallion to Lake's
horsefly-Lake could i maybe even cause him
to stumble or lose control, but Lake was small
potatoes next to Brennan Mcsorley.
  "If I say no to him now, I'm screwed and
he knows it." Lake looked at Fell with an
accusing glare. "You agreed to his terms?"
  "You have final authority, boss, so you can say no
to the deal," Fell responded, "but it's what you
wanted, right? A done deal, in time to pay the account
and retain your shares."
  "You fucking agreed to pay Brennan Mcsorley
ten-point-one percent, Ted?"
  "No one else gave you the time of day, Harold.
You needed eighteen million dollars by close of
business today. If I had even three days, I could
get that for you at eight-point-five. Mcsorley
said yes right away, and I had to move."
  "Maybe you moved a bit too fast."
  "You may not like Mcsorley, boss, but he went
to the mat for you this time," Fell said. "The money is
in escrow, ready to go.
  Mcsorley personally guaranteed the loan,
boss, he showed up at the bank himself to sign the
papers."
  "He'd like nothing better than to see me
default, the prick," Lake said gloomily.
"He'd take great pleasure in seeing me file for
bankruptcy or selling my assets. He'd be
first in line to screw me in bankruptcy court.
He probably showed up at the bank to conduct a
news conference, to announce to the whole world what a
loser I am.
  was Fell elected to stay silent, but he reminded
himself that Harold G. Lake knew a lot about
screwing someone, whether it was in court, in the
market, or just about any imaginable business or
social setting.
  Along with many other talents, Lake was one of the
world's premier options traders. His business was
enticing other investors to write option deals to buy
or sell their stock. Lake had many ways to sniff
out stocks that might come into play--lack of
publicity, no returned phone calls, lots of
unusual stock trading activity by company
officers, even when, where, and how the officers went on
vacation.
  Like a general planning an invasion, Lake was a
master at setting an objective and then designing
a vast, convoluted, sweeping series of trades
to accomplish his ultimate objective--what he
called the "perpetual motion machine." Create a
series of deals, contracts, and companies whose
income and assets always exceeded the expenses and
liabilities. Create a network, an empire,
that was totally self-sufficient, that made contracts
with itself, earned money off itself, paid expenses to itself,
owed money to itself. It was a true "money tree," the
modern day answer to Midas's touch of gold.
  Lake was a master at this kind of deal-making.
After getting an undergraduate degree from
Rutgers and an MBA from Harvard, Lake had
spent his early career in middle management with a
variety of companies and brokerage firms
specializing in "creative" financing, long-term
corporate debt (junk bonds), and market
speculation. In 1980 all the real estate
acquisitions. Then, in 1985, Lake engineered
an insider trading scheme in which the price was
artificially jacked up in a bidding war between
Universal Equity and a company secretly funded
by Lake. Lake was fired, but his illegal
activities were never confirmed by Universal.
Since leaving Universal, Lake worked in a
variety of financial and stock trading positions
before finally striking out on his own.
  "We're still in business, and we've got plenty
to keep us afloat for months," Fell said finally,
standing up to Lake's glare. "Let's maintain the
proper perspective here. Who the hell knew some
nutcase in San Francisco was going to wipe out
half of an international airport terminal and kill
five hundred people? Plenty of investors lost big
on this one, boss, including Mcsorley. It's a
glitch in the market, that's all. Everyone in that
investment consortium that bailed out on you this
morning will be back in a few weeks, looking for
fresh meat.
  They'll know they looked bad when they punched, but
they'll come back because you made it happen. We can
soak them when they come back, too, because they lost
face by bailing out on you."
  Ted Fell was one of the few people, in fact the only
one, who could really talk to Lake like this. Blunt,
no bullshit. But that was because Fell was the best
addition to the organization that Lake had made. He
complemented Lake's own strengths and made up for
Lake's weaknesses in other areas. A graduate of
Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School,
Fell had held several positions with large law
firms in Albany, Wilmington, and New York
City, most in the areas of finance, insurance, and
corporations. Admitted to the bar in sixteen
states, he was considered a leading authority on
corporation organization--i.e dummy corporations
and offshore shells. He had worked for Lake since
his days at Universal Equity, helping him on his
real estate deals and then unwittingly, and then
knowingly, participated as an engineer in the stock
manipulation scheme that had gotten them both fired.
  Lake wasn't totally listening to his
attorney, but what little that did register in his head
made sense. The terrorist bombing of San
Francisco International last night was an
aberration, a total fluke-damn it, it had to be,
or Lake was really sunk. Several hundred
persons dead, thousands injured, hundreds of
millions in damage to aircraft and property, and
perhaps billions in lost revenues due to the closing
of the airport for perhaps as long as a year.
  A one-in-a-million occurrence .. .
  But the damage to Lake's portfolio was just as
devastating, and simply because it was caused by a random
event would not mitigate the damage.
  Because he rarely used his own money for most deals,
Lake liked trading on the edge, leaving himself
uncovered for short periods of time. One of
Lake's favorite options trading tactics was
writing uncovered put and call options, or "naked
options," in which he agreed--for a price of course--
to buy stocks at a certain price that he didn't
have the money to buy, or sell stocks that he did not
yet own.
  In ordinary circumstances, the premiums received
for writing such contracts made the risk well worth
it. But if the market takes a nose
dive and the contract is assigned, as it was during the
night by some astute overseas investor, Lake was
obligated to sell his stocks at low prices or
obligated to buy stocks with cash he did not have. In
both cases, he needed cash in a hurry to cover
all his contracts.
  Normally, in case of impending bad financial
news, Harold Lake's overseas brokers usually
executed closing purchase transactions that canceled
the more risky uncovered options before they were assigned,
but the sheer speed of the terrorist attack and the rapid
reaction by overseas traders made it impossible.
Lake was stuck holding all the IOU'S, and they were
all due and payable by close of business, or he was
out of business. The huge drop in price of
Lake's stocks in overseas trading alone was enough
to queer several other deals in which he was involved. The
New York Stock Exchange was not due to open for
another three hours, the Chicago Board of
Options Exchange not for four hours, and already
Lake had lost 40 percent of his portfolio's
value, much of which had to be covered with cash. Dozens
of nervous overseas investors bailed out on him through
the night, withdrawing money that had been earmarked for
scores of other projects--it was a huge
maze of dominoes collapsing as quickly as the
sunrise moved across the planet.
  Investors heard of the awful terrorist bombing,
took defensive cash-saving positions, and left
speculators like Lake sucking wind.
  Borrowing the money to make up for the losses and
to continue his current obligations only prolonged the
inevitable. Eighteen million dollars wouldn't
last Lake two months, even at zero-percent
interest, let alone at an exorbitant 10
percent. Foreclosures and bankruptcy were
inevitable.
  But even more devastating than just losing your
possessions or property was the loss of prestige,
the loss of face. Normally talking about losing
face was a japanese notion, but it is very true on
Wall Street as well. You are only as good as
your last bad trade, the Street version of the old
saying goes. No one likes a loser, and the stigma
stays with a trader for a long, long time.
  Technically, he was out of business right now, because
no one would ever do deals with him again, but now it was a
matter of survival.
  Bankruptcy was out of the question--it would save him from
a few, but not the ones that mattered. A lot
of the people he dealt with did not allow anyone to hide behind
lawyers and bankruptcy courts.
  Lake took a deep breath, then got to his
feet, straightened his shoulders, and tightened his
stomach and chest muscles until they tingled. When
faced with adversity, he was always taught, get the
blood running and the brain working. Start thinking and
feeling like a warrior and you'll start acting like a
warrior. It was time to get on the offensive: "I'm
going to need a face-to-face with George Jacox
and get a report," Lake said. Jacox was the
outside tax attorney and accountant, leading a
staff of two attorneys and six CPAS who
managed Lake's affairs. "I need
to restructure that debt with Mcsorley first thing."
  "George is in Alaska on that hunting
trip," Fell reminded him.
  "Completely incommunicado until
Saturday. I can get in contact with his partner."
  "Scherber's an asshole," Lake said.
"Besides, George knows where all the bodies are
buried. Get the jet and go pick him up.
  Better yet, pack all his records on a
portable computer, grab a satellite
transceiver, and take it all to him. Then
let's put in a call to--"
  "Boss, I think our first move should be to sign
those papers and get the loan moving," Fell
interjected. He wasn't about to tell Lake, at
least not this minute, that they could hardly afford
to reserve a court at the YMCA right now, let
alone fly the company's private jet from New
York to Alaska and back. "We've only got
two hours before the last wire transfer from
Europe. In an hour and a half the phone's going
to be ringing off the hook, and we'd better have a wire
receipt to show the institutions that we're covered or
we'll really be in trouble."
  "I am not going to spend all day on the phone with a
bunch of nervous bean-counters," Lake said. "They
wanted to play, and this is part of the game--let them
sweat for a few hours while we get our shit together
here. Next time, Jacox doesn't leave the
fucking city without a cellular phone or I'm
finding a new legal team."
  "We don't needjacox to read a spreadsheet
or make a pitch to the venture capital types,"
Fell said. "I can handle the legal side of the
opening negotiations. But let's get solvent first
before we start bending anyone's ear."
  "You don't get it, do you, Ted?" Lake
snapped, turning angrily toward his longtime
associate. Lake was a bit shorter than Fell
and physically smaller, with tight, wiry muscles
and a lean physique-physically, he was no match
for the huskier, more solidly built attorney. But
the air of desperation that hovered around Harold Lake
made him seem all the more fearsome. The veneer of
cunning control was gone--as much as he tried, Lake
was not going to get it back.
  He ranted, "I am not going to go
into eighteen-million-plus dollars in debt, get
bombarded by jerkoffs who think they can push me around
because the market takes a header suddenly one morning,
and then try to pretend everything is going to be okay.
This is a glitch in the market, nothing more. We're
in the middle of a sustained bull market, for God's
sake! The market hits new record-high
territory every three months! Is it my damned
fault that a fucking terrorist drops a bomb on
San Francisco International?"
  "Take it easy, boss .. ." Fell tried.
  The phone on Lake's desk rang--the
onslaught of inquiries that Fell was expecting was
now beginning. "Tell whoever it is to fuck
off," Lake hissed, returning to his desk and
resuming staring blankly out the window. Fell
answered the phone, leaving instructions that Lake not be
disturbed and that he would handle all calls himself.
  "Get out, Ted," he told his assistant from behind
his chair. Fell was going to stay despite his
boss's obvious anger, but when Lake appeared
to be looking over the loan papers and getting back
to work, he relaxed a bit and departed.
  The bombing of San Francisco International
by some crazed lunatic gunrunner may have been a
random, completely unforeseen event, even an
accident. But one thing Harold Lake knew for
sure was that it could very easily happen again. Yes, a
lunatic was behind it .. .
  .. . and Lake, like the rest of the world, knew who
he was.
  Options trading was not the only kind of trading
Harold Lake did.
  Some of the "institutions" he worked with were not listed on
Standard and Poor's or Dun and Bradstreet, and
some of the CEOS and investors who paid him generous
commissions and maintained fat accounts with him were not in
any issue of Who's Who unless that publication had
a version on underworld figures. His biggest
secret client was none other than Henri
Cazaux, the one responsible for the financial mess
Lake was in right now. Lake had never planned on
getting involved with men of this caliber. He was far
too vain and far too much of a self-preservationist
to risk dying at their displeasure.
  But back in 1987, after being fired from
Universal Equity and trying to strike out on his
own, Lake kept getting approached by smugglers,
hoods, and eventually bigger fish like New
York-area mob bosses.
  They could smell a hungry, smart
manipulator of cash, but Lake did all he could
to resist their overtures. Until the market crash
of 1987.
  It was then that Harold Lake, fully exposed in
all his investments, took a nose dive and lost
millions overnight. After that, needing quick cash in a
hurry, Lake began to see the appeal of laundering
money. He made a few contacts, and before he
knew it, drug money was reinforcing his investments.
Lake stayed solvent and slowly began to get
completely immersed in the science of laundering
money.
  In 1991 Henry Cazaux stepped in
and demanded Lake handle all of his accounts.
  It was an offer, as the saying goes, that Lake
couldn't refuse.
  Unless, of course, he wanted a bullet in the
head.
  Cazaux was different from your typical
sociopath. He was power hungry, and a
megalomaniac, and definitely psychotic, and very
smart. Each of his various identities all over the
world lived in completely legal surroundings, with
proper books, properly filed tax returns, and
proper documentation. True, only a small
percentage of his total net worth was ever
reported, but the funds and the persons that existed
aboveground were squeaky clean, thanks to Harold
Lake and others like him in other countries. He had
to track down the sonofabitch and tell him to crawl
back into his Mexico hideout, right fucking now,
or his source of legitimate, laundered money was
going to dry up.
  The first thing Harold Lake did was pick up the
phone and dial a tollfree number that connected him
to a private voice-mail system that was
untraceable either to himself or to his calling party. In
case someone tried to trace the call,
they'd reach a computer with two thousand names and
addresses, and if investigators showed up to try
to track down the names, they could be erased from computer
memory in seconds. In turn, the voice-mail
system connected him to a private paging service,
again untraceable. Lake entered just three numbers
on the pager--911--then hung up.
  He then looked over the loan paperwork. Fell
had placed Post-It Notes on several
important or critical areas of the contract that he
had changed or that required special consideration, but
his final recommendation was to sign. Reluctantly,
Lake did so, adding the words "I hope you choke
on it" under the signature line. He then punched his
intercom button to Fell's office: "The loan
papers are ready, Ted.
  Come get the fuckers."
  Just then he heard a faint beep coming from a desk
drawer. He opened the drawer and retrieved his
Apple Newton P.d.a (personal digital
assistant), a handheld computer about the size of a
paperback book.
  The P.d.a had a built-in wireless network
system that allowed him to receive packet digital
messages anywhere in the world, communicate
directly with other computers, or send or receive
fares.
  He activated the P.d.a and called up the
messaging system, entering a password to access the
secret message area. The message read
simply, OWL S NEST. RIGHT NOW.
  Stunned, he all but leaped to his feet, then
put on a jacket, slipped the P.d.a computer
into his jacket pocket, and left the office via
the back door as fast as he could.
  Beale Air Force Base, Yuba City,
California That Same Time Colonel Charles
Gaspar, operations group commander of the 144th Fighter
Wing (california Air National Guard), asked,
"You're standing there telling me that you're sticking with this
cockamamie story, Vincenti?" The tall,
slightly balding officer got to his feet,
circled his desk, and stood face to face with
Lieutenant Colonel Also Vincenti.
  The veteran Vincenti defiantly followed
Gaspar's movements with his head and eyes while
remaining at attention, which angered Gaspar even more.
The men were of equal height, but Gaspar was several
years younger rank, he couldn't intimidate the older
veteran fighter pilot.
  Gaspar had less than half of Vincenti's
flying hours, and the adage that Vincenti had forgotten
more than Gaspar had ever known held true-and everyone
there knew it.
  "Call me on it, Chuck," Vincenti replied
hotly. "Try to refute any of it. You'll
lose."
  "Don't challenge me, Also," Gaspar said
angrily. "Don't even bother trying. They
don't need me to help throw you to the dogs-you've
done that all by yourself. The FBI has taken over this
case, and the first head they want is yours. So you
better straighten out your attitude."
  Gaspar took a deep breath. It was
important for Vincenti to stick to his story--if
he couldn't make Gaspar, his longtime friend and
wingman, believe his story, no one else was going
to believe it either.
  "You maintain that your last order was to pursue
Cazaux, that you believed that the order to land at
Beale meant land only when your fuel condition
warranted or if you could not reestablish contact with
Cazaux. Is that correct, Also?"
  "That's what I wrote in my report."
  "The controller's tape says
otherwise."
  "My gun camera tape shows that I acknowledge
the order to pursue."
  "Played side by side, the tapes don't
jive, Also," Gaspar said.
  Although military aircraft did not have cockpit
voice recorders, the F's heads-up display
system used a color videotape system
to record gun camera video. The system, which also
recorded radio and intercom conversations and copied
flight and aircraft performance data like an
airliner's inflight data recorder "black
box," was often used by the pilots to record
significant events inflight as well.
  "We hear you acknowledging orders that we never hear
on the radio.
  It looks like the tape's been doctored, or that
you simply fake receiving orders to pursue."
  "So now I'm being accused of falsifying
orders?" Vincenti asked.
  "Looks like I'm being set up to take the fall
for this entire incident.
  Henri Cazaux blows up two airports and
kills hundreds of persons, and I'm to blame.
Wonder how the media would react to this?"
  "You're prohibited from talking with the media."
  "If the Air Force tries to court-martial me
for what happened last night, Chuck, I'm
spilling my guts," Vincenti said angrily.
  "I'm not bullshitting you. I've got a copy
of the H.u.d tape, and I'll give it to every TV
and radio station I can think of."
  "What the hell's with you, Also?" Gaspar
exclaimed, his voice serious now, searching his friend's
face with a definite edge of concern--Vincenti
usually was not evasive or secretive at all.
  Claiming he had an engine malfunction,
Vincenti had landed all the way back at Fresno
Air Terminal instead of at Beale Air Force
Base, as he had been directed to do. Although
Fresno was closer and was his home station, he had
plenty of gas to make it to Beale as he was ordered.
  As the F-16 pilots do every mission, Vincenti
pulled his own mission videotapes, and he had it in
his possession when he was met by a representative
of Fourth Air Force's Judge Advocate
General's office about two hours later. The jag
officer confiscated the videotape, supervised a
blood-and-urine test, and escorted Vincenti here
to Beale Air Force Base, where the
accident investigation board was going to be held.
Theoretically, Vincenti had time to work on the
videotape, doctor it, and duplicate it before
someone finally ordered him to surrender it to the judge
advocate. Gaspar didn't think he really did
all those things--Vincenti had always been a team
player--but there was no doubt that Vincenti was pissed
enough to do anything right about now.
  "I'm sorry about Linda's death," Gaspar said
softly.
  Vincenti swallowed hard, nodded, and let his
anger wash away, to be replaced by an empty
numbness. Linda McKenzie never got full
man-seat separation after ejecting from her Falcon on
the runway at Mcclellan.
  She was still in the ejection seat, with only a partial
parachute, when it hit the ground at over one
hundred miles an hour. She mercifully died of
her horrible injuries after several hours of
emergency surgery.
  "That's not your fault, and I understand the pain you're
feeling, and the pain you felt last night," Gaspar
went on. "But now you're breaking with the program,
Rattler. You're abandoning the Force, abandoning your
uniform, abandoning your
responsibilities."
  "Don't give me that crap, Chuck,"
Vincenti retorted. "All I see around here is
brass rushing to cover their butts. Linda and I
did the shitty job we were assigned the best we
could. They should have never tried to capture that motherfucking
terrorist, especially knowing he had all those
explosives on board. And sure as hell they should
have never herded him over Sacramento or allowed him
to get anywhere near San Francisco. We
should've either blown his ass away or let him go."
  "I'm not arguing with you, Also, and I'm not going
to second guess the brass," Gaspar said. "All
I'm trying to do is get the facts."
  "This is not a debriefing, Chuck. This is not a
'lessons learned" session. This is not even an
accident investigation. You don't want my
observations or opinions, and you don't care about the
facts because everyone's already made up their minds about
who's to blame. This is a fucking inquisition.
Everyone's looking at me and Linda as to why we
allowed it to happen, why we let Cazaux fly
over Mather and S.f.o and drop those
explosives, why we let Cazaux kill so many
persons on the ground. I will tell you right
now, hub, I'm not going to allow it. If I'm still
getting the third degree, I'll clam up, get
an attorney, refuse to talk, take the Fifth,
get immunity from prosecution, and screw you and
screw the Air Force and the entire federal
government. I owe my wingman my full support,
even if she's not here, and goddammit, I'm going
to give it. Now, how do you want to play it from here
on out, Chuck?"
  "Okay, Also, I'll add my endorsement over
your signature, recommending no disciplinary action
and immediate return to flight status--for all right, chum
--the feds want heads to roll because Cazaux got
away--and you've been elected. The new director
of the FBI herself, Lam "Trigger' Wilkes, is
coming here in a few hours to begin the investigation and to do
the press conference at the airport."
  "Great," Vincenti muttered. Lam Wilkes,
the new director of the FBI, had been given the
nickname "Trigger" for two reasons-her stand on
strict gun control, favoring not just an all-out ban
on private purchases of handguns but complete
nationwide confiscation of all guns with more than five
rounds in them, and because of her hair-trigger temper,
first seen during her Senate confirmation
hearings and in many courtrooms, press conferences, and
congressional hearings since.
  "Chuck, you might as well just pass my report
along to the FBI without your signature. Wilkes
is a tough liberal bitch. She'll accuse everyone
involved in this thing as being a bunch of screw-ups,
tell the press how evil and out of control the
military is, then talk about how society, or
guns, or the military, has messed up the youth
of the country, or some such horseshit. There's no
use fighting her."
  "Hey, I don't report to Wilkes, Also,"
said Gaspar.
  "I know, but the press and the White House love
her, and if she makes you an enemy, she'll bury
you alive," Vincenti said. "The further you steer
clear of her, the better."
  "Well, the wing king wants us to go with him to her
press conference at the airport, so I'm going,"
Gaspar said resignedly.
  "The press is having a field day with the air
traffic controller tapes of you threatening Cazaux
and chasing him through the San Francisco Class
B airspace. The press thinks you goaded
Cazaux into blowing up his plane over
S.f.o."
  "That's horseshit, Chuck," Vincenti
interjected. "Cazaux had no intention of
surrendering or safely jettisoning any of those
explosives--he jettisoned a palletful of
military gear and kept the pallet of explosives
on board. His target was either to ram an airliner in
midair or bomb S.f.o, whichever he could do
before getting shot down."
  "The press and the government don't see it that
way, Also," Gaspar said.
  "Anyway, you're in the hot seat now. If you have
any friends in very, very high places, I suggest you
call them in."
  "Fuck it," Vincenti said bitterly. "If they
want my wings, they can have "em. But I'll tell
you something, Chuck--Henri Cazaux is not going
to dive underground now. He blew up Mather
Jetport on purpose, not by accident, and I think
the motherfucker enjoyed watching the fireworks. When he
found out I was on his tail, he went right for the next
big airfield he could find--San Francisco
International. The bastard's going to go after more big
airfields, Chuck.
  I know it. If you have a chance to tell
Lam Wilkes that, tell her."
  "Forget about Cazaux and Wilkes now, Also,"
Gaspar said. "Let's deal with your problems. My
group commander hat is off now, the recorder is off,
my fellow fighter pilot hat is on, and it's just
you and me. I'm not trying to coach you here--you had
better tell the truth during the accident investigation
board or your ass is grass--but I want to go
over your statement and the sortie chronology minute
by minute. Don't leave out a thing."
  But as Vincenti started talking, the onus of what
he had said started to make an impression on
Charles Gaspar--and he realized that Vincenti was
right. He too had a feeling that Henri Cazaux
would be back, and that no airport in the United
States was safe any longer.
  The phone in Gaspar's office rang, and he
snatched it up irritably: "I thought I told you
no calls, Sergeant."
  "Sorry, sir, but I just got a call from base
operations," the group commander's clerk said.
"V.i.p aircraft inbound, and they just released the
plane's passenger list." The clerk told him the
plane's lone passenger, and Vincenti saw
Gaspar's mouth drop open in surprise.
  "He wants to meet with you and Colonel
Vincenti right away at base ops."
  "No shit," Gaspar exclaimed, looking with
total amusement at Vincenti's puzzled
expression. "We'll be right over." He replaced
the phone and smiled broadly at Vincenti.
"Well, cowboy, looks like you do have a powerful friend,
and he's decided to crash Lam Wilkes" press
conference. Let's go."
  "The terrorist bombing incidents over
Sacramento and San Francisco last night are
terrible and tragic ones for all concerned," Lam
Helena Wilkes, FBI Director, said to the
members of the press from the podium erected on the
aircraft parking ramp just outside the base
operations building at Beale Air Force Base.
This was where the bulk of the FBI'S field
investigative work for the Cazaux attack was going
to be conducted. "Because this is an investigation in
progress, I cannot talk about our investigation itself,
except to say this: one of the largest manhunts in
U.s. history is under way right now in
California for Henri Cazaux, who bailed out of the
cargo plane seconds before it crashed into San
Francisco International. Over three
thousand federal agents are on his trail, and I'm
confident--no, I'm positive--that he'll be
captured soon."
  Wilkes was a powerful and dynamic presence, and the
press corps treated her with great respect. An
accomplished trial lawyer, state and federal
district court justice from Alabama, ordained
Baptist minister, and political campaign
consultant, Lam Wilkes was one of the preeminent
personalities in American politics. Rising
from a life in the Montgomery slums to leading the
number-one criminal investigative force in the world,
Wilkes was undoubtedly one of the most notable and
most respected figures of either sex in the world.
  Once mentioned as a vice-presidential
candidate, there was no question that the forty-eight-year-old
African-American woman, tall and
statuesque and beautiful, would be one of the nation's
top leaders of the twenty-first century.
  "Director Wilkes, do you have any leads yet
on the case?" one reporter asked.
  "I can't go into details, but we believe we've
tracked down the origin of the explosives and other
weapons used in the attacks, and the registration of the
aircraft used. It was a
U.s.-registered aircraft, belonging to a small
cargo firm in Redmond, Oregon--obviously a
front for Henri Cazaux's operation."
  "Henri Cazaux was operating here in
California? Why wasn't this discovered earlier?"
  "As you all know, Cazaux is extremely
intelligent and resourceful," Wilkes
responded. "And if I may give the Devil his
due, it seems that in this case he played by the
rules, which of course in a free society such as
ours means that he's relatively free of
intrusive government scrutiny. So far we find
only legitimate businesses doing legitimate
business transactions here in California and much of the
western United States and Canada for many years.
He pays taxes, sends in his reports, keeps
his nose clean. Even a merchant of death can roam
free in our society if he doesn't call
attention to himself."
  "Director Wilkes, can you please go over again
the path that Henri Cazaux took after departing
Chico Airport last night?" another reported
asked. "As I understand it, Marshals Service,
a.t.f agents, and even the U.s. Air Force
had a chance to apprehend or shoot him
down."
  "Unfortunately, I haven't had time to fully
study the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms' operation, so I can't really comment on
it," Wilkes responded, smiling tightly. "I
haven't been briefed by the Treasury Department
yet, but I understand they were the ones that requested
support from the Air Force. As far as the Marshals
Service, their role in this incident was to try
to apprehend Cazaux as part of his numerous outstanding
warrants. Unfortunately, their efforts, as far as
I can ascertain, were not coordinated."
  "Not coordinated?" A general hubbub followed.
Just then an Air Force blue sedan pulled up beside
the group of photographers, and several Air Force
officers and a civilian got out. Wilkes
recognized the civilian who got out of the sedan,
one of her assistants, and motioned him to bring the
Air Force officers over to the podium.
  Being invited to stand on Wilkes' podium
didn't mean he had to wait for her expected
barrage, so Gaspar took the initiative, stepped
right up to the microphone, and without waiting for
Wilkes to introduce him, said, "Ladies and
gentlemen, my name is Colonel Charles
Gaspar, and I'm the operations group commander for the
144th Fighter Wing, California Air National
Guard, based at Fresno Air Terminal. With
me is Lieutenant Colonel Also Vincenti, the
lead pilot involved in last night's incident."
Gaspar did not introduce the third officer with them,
a young female Air Force captain who stayed
away from the podium but within earshot: she was the area
defense counsel, the military defense attorney
assigned to Also Vincenti, and like any defense
attorney her job was to be sure Vincenti was not
forced or tricked into answering questions that might harm his
defense, should he be brought in front of a
court-martial.
  "We are here at the request of FBI
Director Wilkes to make some general statements
about last night's incident," Gaspar continued. "As
Colonel Vincenti's superior officer, and as the
representative of the 144th Wing, I would like
to speak for the Wing and Colonel--" But the members
of the press didn't allow him to finish.
  One reporter shouted out, "Colonel Vincenti,
why did you chase Henri Cazaux over San
Francisco? Tell us why you wanted him dead.
Is it because of what he allegedly did
to your partner, Linda McKenzie?"
  "Why is it," Vincenti blurted out, "that you
call what Henri Cazaux did "alleged," and
what I did you think is a certainty?
  Cazaux bombed Mather and San Francisco
International, for God's sake!"
  The press corps' photographers snapped
away at the pilot's angry face, and within
seconds the reporters were inching back in to hear every
word. "And I didn't "chase" him over San
Francisco," Vincenti continued. "He flew
over the city and into the traffic pattern to try to get
away from me."
  "But who gave you the order to pursue him into San
Francisco?
  Who gave you the order to attack him?"
  This time the area defense counsel pushed her body
in front of the microphone. "Ladies and
gentlemen, Colonel Vincenti will be appearing in
front of an Air Force flight review board and
accident investigation board, and he will certainly be
part of the FBI'S investigation.
  Please don't try to convict him in the media as
well."
  "I think the Captain is right,"
Wilkes said, holding up her hands protectively
in front of the area defense counsel. "Colonel
Vincenti is not on trial here, and we don't
expect him to be responsible for what someone like
Henri Cazaux does." Those remarks made
Vincenti and his defense counsel relax--and that's
when Wilkes continued: "But I think this incident
points out the enormous hazards involved with asking the
military to participate in any way other than in
an indirect supporting role in law enforcement
operations. The military's primary function is
to destroy and kill, and that's what Colonel
Vincenti was trying to do last night when he drove
Cazaux's plane over San Francisco."
  "I did not drive Cazaux over San
Francisco, he flew there all by himself,"
Vincenti snapped. He stepped over toward the
microphone, and Wilkes had no choice but to give
ground. "And the military's primary job national
security by protecting this country from all enemies,
domestic as well as foreign. A terrorist in the
sky is a threat to our national security, and it
calls for a military response. Just because we
operate over American soil rather than foreign
soil doesn't mean the military can't or
shouldn't do the job. The cops and the federal
authorities-even the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms--are all outgunned.
Cazaux realizes this now--"
  "Excuse me, Colonel, but this is not the time
for a sermon or a call to arms," Wilkes said,
smiling benignly as if Vincenti had cracked a
joke or was a street corner preacher. "The FBI
can handle Henri Cazaux--that I promise.
  "I think that concludes this press conference,"
Wilkes said into the microphone. "Thank you,
ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming."
  Wilkes' security team appeared in front of the
podium as if by magic, and except for a few questions
shouted out by reporters, the briefing was over. But
Wilkes was not through. She stepped away from the
microphone, turned her back on the cameras and
reporters, and seethed at Vincenti, "I strongly
advise you, Colonel, to keep your mouth shut and
to cooperate in every way possible with this investigation.
This is not the time to be mouthing off about things you know
nothing about.
  Do you understand me, Colonel?"
  Vincenti was going to reply, but a sudden motion
got his attention. He saw an Air
Force C-20But, a military version of the
Gulfstream III business jet, roll up to the
parking ramp, aiming directly at the podium--and
it kept on coming. Just as it appeared as if it was going
to hit the red rope at the edge of the ramp, and just as the
FBI security agents started to reach for their concealed
weapons, the jet turned away, came to a stop, and
shut down engines.
  As it was obviously intended, the members of the
press stopped and turned their full attention to the
jet as the airstair opened up and the C's
passengers emerged.
  Vincenti was surprised--no, shocked--not by the
look of the man who came down out of the C-20, but
by Lam Wilkes' reaction to seeing him.
  The tall, wiry, gray-haired man that stepped
out of the Air Force V.i.p jet commanded instant
attention.
  The other men and women that followed the first man were
well-known national figures as well--including the
former Vice President of the United States,
Kevin Martindale; the junior U.s. senator
from Texas, Georgette Heyerdahl; the U.s.
House of Representatives' Minority Leader from
Georgia, Paul Wescott; and a
congressman from the San Martindale who took the
lead and headed toward Director Wilkes and the
podium, but the press was riveted on the tall,
imposing man beside him.
  "I sincerely apologize for this late arrival
and our intrusion," Kevin Martindale said into the
microphone as the members of the press hurriedly
assembled back at the podium. "We were watching
Judge Wilkes' press conference on the TV, and
when we saw it was over I didn't think anyone would
mind if we parked here. Sorry for the lousy parking
job, but it was my first time at the controls of one of
these babies. It's hard to drive and read the
instruction booklet at the same time."
  He waited for the laughter to die down, then
continued: "I'm sure you all know my colleagues
here. Mr. Wescott is of course the House
Minority Leader, and our gracious host for this
fact-finding trip.
  Senator Heyerdahl is the new cochairman
of the Senate Subcommittee on the Future of the
Military and National Defense, part of the Senate
Military Affairs Committee, the group which is
trying to design a framework for the U.s. military
in the next fifteen to fifty years.
  And I believe you all know retired Coast
Guard Rear Admiral Ian Hardcastle, former
commander of the U.s. Border Security Force, the
antismuggling and border security group, also known
as the Hammerheads.
  Paul Wescott was kind enough to notify me that
Congressman Leyland from San Jose was heading a
congressional investigation on the incident last night,
and he invited myself, Senator Heyerdahl, and
Admiral Hardcastle to come along as his guests and
advisers."
  Wilkes tried hard not to show it, but the appearance
of these four persons, and especially Ian
Hardcastle, was precisely the last thing she needed
right now, and her stomach was doing exasperated
backflips.
  Since the Cabinet-level Department of Border
Security was disbanded in 1993 after the new
Administration took office, Ian Hardcastle,
who Security Force back around 1990, was
regularly on every TV and radio talk show in the
country, talking about the decay of the U.s.
military in general and of home defense in
particular. Every move the Administration made in
terms of the military--efforts in
Somalia, policies regarding Bosnia,
defense cutbacks, gays in the military, base
closures, and a hundred other topics--was
routinely criticized by Hardcastle, seemingly
minutes after a decision was made by the President
or his Cabinet, oftentimes even before they made a
move.
  Hardcastle, who was articulate, handsome as
hell, well read, and knowledgeable about every military
program, was a formidable opponent.
  "I would first like to extend my sincere condolences to the
families and colleagues of California Air
National Guard Major Linda McKenzie;
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
Special Agents Russo, Foreman, Wickers,
Kritchek, and Bowman, and all those who lost a
loved one in San Francisco," former Vice
President Martindale continued. "It was a
tragedy of simply shocking proportions that has
outraged this nation.
  It is absolutely imperative that Henri
Cazaux and all those who were responsible for this
insane and ruthless attack be brought to justice
immediately.
  "But it is also in our best interests to do
something to ensure that a tragedy like this never is allowed
to happen again in the future," Martindale went on.
"As you all know, Admiral Hardcastle has been
very actively speaking out against some of the current
Administration's policies regarding the military and
national security and defense issues. Up until
now, his has been largely a lone voice shouting as
it were against the winds of change. Since our defeat in
the last election, Admiral Hardcastle has been
encouraging me to give up my self-imposed exile
from the national debates of the issues of the times and get
involved in shaping policies for the future.
  Unwisely, I resisted." He half-turned
to Ian Hardcastle, gave him a wry smile, and
added, "Frankly, Ian, you old sea dog, you
sometimes come on as quietly as a tidal wave.
  "But last week, in a speech to the National
Press Club, Admiral Hardcastle talked
about the threat of terrorism here in the United
States. After reading the text of his speech, I
made a few inquiries into some of the issues he
raised and the accuracy of the facts he presented. In
short, Admiral Hardcastle knows what he's
talking about. He virtually predicted this very
incident. That's when I decided to join
forces with him, the American Congressional
Citizens Alliance, and the Project 2000
Task Force, and accept an invitation by members of
Congress to investigate this tragedy and make some
observations about the threat that faces us and what we can
do to stop it."
  It was a thinly disguised reason for being here, and
Lam Wilkes and most of the members of the national
press knew it. The Project 2000 Task
Force was a group of right-of-center moderates and
conservatives who would in all likelihood form the
basis for a major run on the White House in
1996. Formed after the 1992 elections, the
American Congressional Citizens Alliance was a
mirror image of the Project Task Force,
composed of present and past members of Congress,
including one-fourth of the U.s. Senate and about one
hundred members of the House of
Representatives. After its inception, Project
2000 was most noteworthy for who was not in it,
namely, the former Vice President, Kevin
Martindale, who had always been considered a major
front-runner in the next presidential
elections.
  Obviously, with this surprise appearance
as a major player in the Task Force, he was now
out of seclusion and back in the White House hunt.
  It was a very unexpected and dramatic coming-out for the
former Vice President to take on one of the
Administration's toughest and most influential
personalities. Worse for her, right in the middle
of her own press conference.
  But such a move was typical of Martindale. A
former U.s. Congressman from Minnesota and former
mayor of Minneapolis, Martindale's style of
politics was full-speed-ahead, smash-face,
down-in-the-dirt nasty. It was those traits that had
made him such a prized pit bull in dealing with
Congress, the liberal left, and others during his
two terms as Vice President during the
previous Administration. Tough and conservative, he
was one of the country's biggest advocates of tougher
laws, tougher sentences, the death penalty, and a strong
military.
  During his term as Vice President, he had
been a huge supporter of Admiral Ian
Hardcastle's Border Security Force (the
Hammerheads) and his disdain for the current
Administration had been known practically from the moment
the new President was sworn in.
Martindale had little use for a man whom he considered
a Southern political snake with a duplicitous and
questionable private life. He had even less use
for the President's wife, a tough-as-nails
political infighter he and every other Republican
in the capital referred to derisively as the Steel
Magnolia.
  Representative Wescott, Senator
Heyerdahl, and Representative Leyland all
made brief comments after Vice President
Martindale.
  The usually outspoken Hardcastle declined
to make a comment or take any questions, which probably
evoked more questions and surprise than if he had
spoken. Afterward, Martindale and his group left the
podium and encircled FBI Director Wilkes
and her staff. "Judge Wilkes, it's a
pleasure to see you again," Martindale said, extending
a hand.
  The press, out of earshot, snapped away as
Wilkes took his hand.
  "I hope you'll apologize for this intrusion, but
the Senate subcommittee wanted to be in on this
investigation from the very beginning, so we had little choice."
  Wilkes tried very hard to continue
to maintain her composure.
  "I would be happy to brief the subcommittee
or any other chamber of Congress on the status of
this investigation at any time, Mr. Vice
President," Wilkes said crisply, not bothering
to acknowledge Martindale's apology. It was
obvious to all that she was greatly displeased with her
press-conference-turned-circus. "It wasn't necessary
for the Senate to appoint a commission; I pledge
full cooperation. I'm of course happy to see you
and pleased to be working with you, but all this congressional
attention to an unfortunate but random act of violence
seems rather unusual, Mr. Vice President."
  "I seem to recall an investigation begun by the
Senate judiciary Committee back a few years
ago, around 1991," Martindale said, affixing the
beautiful Lam Wilkes with a boyish, mischievous
hint of a smile, was that produced a lawsuit against
the old Border Security Force in a Mexican
drug-smuggling-investigation incident. You might be
familiar with that case, Judge Wilkes--that
lawsuit was filed in your court." Wilkes did
indeed remember the Maria Fuentes incident. A
young, pregnant female Mexican drug "mule"
--not a drug dealer, not a true smuggler,
but someone who, most times knowingly, carries drugs--
had swallowed thirty condoms filled with cocaine,
almost thirty pounds and two hundred thousand dollars'
worth, and had tried to take the drugs into the United
States on board a small motorboat, with two
young children. She was detected, but could have gone
unchallenged had she not panicked and gunned the engine
when the Border Security Force's V-22 Sea
Lion armed interceptor aircraft flew near
her. The chase took two hours, with a small air
force of sophisticated aircraft buzzing overhead.
  Fuentes ran the boat ran aground near a
popular seaside resort at Palmetto Beach,
near Mobile, Alabama. The woman grabbed her
two kids and tried to flee across the beach on foot.
To the astonishment of about a hundred stunned
onlookers, she was finally apprehended in a
spectacular assault by the V-22 tilt-rotor
aircraft.
  But during the arrest, one of the condoms of cocaine
inside the woman broke open, poisoning her and
creating an instantaneous stillbirth for everyone
to watch, including Fuentes' two terrified children.
  The public outcry was deafening--and it was all
directed against the Hammerheads;
then-Vice President Martindale, who was a
strong Department of Border Security ally; and
then-co-commander of the Border Security Force
Admiral Ian Hardcastle. In response, the
Senate judiciary Committee unexpectedly
launched an investigation, "leaking" its supposedly
classified information to the press, which led to a
lawsuit filed on behalf of the dead woman's
family charging the Hammerheads with an unreasonable
pursuit, unreasonable "search and seizure"--
actually charging the Hammerheads with using the V-22
to force the woman to disgorge the drugs--and
unreasonable use of force.
  Federal judge Lam Wilkes' court blasted
the government, equating the Hammerheads with East
German border guards shooting Germans trying
to escape over the Berlin Wall.
  The government was ordered to pay an incredible
ten-milliondollar settlement to the dead woman's
family and to some of the onlookers, who incident.
Kevin Martindale and Ian Hardcastle were
publicly ridiculed.
  Although the verdict was overturned by the U.s.
Supreme Court years later on appeal, the
case was regarded as the beginning of the end of the
Hammerheads and the Department of Border Security,
which was abolished shortly after the new President
took the oath of office in "I remember the
Fuentes case very well, Mr. Vice
President," Wilkes said uneasily. "But the
judiciary Committee was completely within its bounds
to investigate the incident then. Besides, that was an
investigation of a serious incident by the Border
Security Force, not of an ongoing FBI
criminal investigation. The FBI enjoys a certain
immunity from Congressional oversight in the course of
an investigation.
  "I can't speak for the Senate, Judge
Wilkes, but I think the rules have changed--we've
been authorized to proceed," Martindale said. He
accepted a sealed folder from an aide. It carried
the seal of the U.s. Senate on its cover. "And
I assure you, we won't interfere with your
investigation. We'll just require a briefing--no
more than three times per day--with the items stated in this
folder included.
  Also, we have observers that will accompany some of your
investigators.
  If you would, please provide us with a list of your
senior investigators, and we'll pair
an observer up with him or her right away."
  "I'm sorry, Mr. Vice President, but
there's been some mistake," Lam Wilkes
interrupted. "I can't allow non-Bureau
observers on an investigation. And I wish I had
the time to give you special briefings on the status
of the case, but I don't. The Bureau gives
daily press briefings in Washington."
  "Our observers are fully trained former FBI,
DIA, or CIA investigators, Judge
Wilkes," Martindale said. "They know your
procedures--our chief Bureau consultant is
Jeffrey Peck." Wilkes' eyes grew wide
--Peck was the former Bureau deputy director,
a longtime FBI veteran, fired from his post as
number-two man because of allegations of wrongdoing.
No specific charges were ever brought against him.
  Peck had vehemently argued his innocence and never
resigned even though the pressure to do so was
enormous, but there had to be a housecleaning when the
new Administration came in, so Peck was forced out.
The President expended a lot of political
capital to fire Peck--now they were going to face
him again. Martindale's pleasant smile dimmed a
bit as he added, "And I certainly hope
the three briefings a day won't be too much of a
burden for you--because our charter demands nothing less of
you. I'm sure you understand."
  Wilkes saw the smile diminish and knew that
Vice President Martindale wasn't going
to spar with her any longer. But she wasn't going to be
bullied by any of these outsiders either. "Of course
I understand, Mr. Vice President. I'll
extend every consideration to you and your people. All I need
is confirmation from the president pro term of the
Senate." Wilkes knew the current Vice
President would put a halt to all this nonsense
right away. "We can start as soon as--"
  "I'm sorry, Judge Wilkes, I should have
handed this over earlier," Senator Georgette
Heyerdahl said. It was a warrant, signed by the
Senate Minority Leader. "As you know, the Vice
President is overseas, and he turned the gavel
over to the Majority Leader.
  Unfortunately, Senator Collingsworth lost
an aunt in the explosion in San Francisco
airport last night, and he is on emergency
leave.
  Since the Senate Majority Whip is also out
of the country, he allowed the gavel to be
transferred to the Senate Minority Leader. Here
is his charter for our organization to conduct this
investigation."
  Wilkes accepted the letter but did not look at
it--she was very familiar with this type of provision,
called a "roundhouse."
  Officially, the U.s. Senate is never formally
adjourned--the gavel, or presidency of the
Senate, is always in someone's hand, day and night,
while the Senate is "in recess." The
president pro term of the Senate (the Vice
President of the United States) usually leaves
it up to the leader of his party in the Senate to choose
who would preside in his stead, but there is a definite
"pecking order" in case of emergencies or disaster.
Usually the day-to-day presidency of the Senate is
ceremonial in nature, but it also conveys a lot of
power to anyone who knows the law and who has the guts
to use it. Establishing a charter to a Senate
subcommittee to begin some work is one such power of the
president pro term, and pulling a roundhouse is a
quick way to get it enacted. "The charter is only good
for five days or until the full Senate can vote
to cancel it," Heyerdahl added, as if trying
to instruct Wilkes on the law, "but it's
in force right now."
  "I'm well aware of the law, Senator, thank
you," Wilkes interrupted.
  Of course, the Vice President, who was away
in Tokyo, could snatch the gavel back immediately just
by stepping aboard Air Force Two or into the
American embassy--both were always considered
American territory--and he could yank the group's
charter away in a New York minute. But at this
stage of the game, with a very public press conference just
concluded, it was probably not a wise decision.
  Any hesitancy the Vice President or
Wilkes might show toward such a distinguished group as
the Project 2000 Task Force might appear like
a cover-up.
  "As I said, I'll be more than happy
to cooperate with your subcommittee, Mr. Vice
President." Wilkes sighed. No use in trying
to fight this anymore, she thought. She had to contact the
justice Department and the President right away and
let them handle Martindale and Hardcastle. "An
office has been set up in one of the SR-71
hangars for our team, and I'm due to receive a
situation briefing as soon as I arrive. You're
welcome to sit in."
  "Thank you judge Wilkes," Martindale said,
the famous boyish smile returning. He shook
hands again with her, making sure that the press
photographers captured the moment.
  After the impromptu press conference broke up,
Hardcastle noticed several Air Force officers
standing by a blue sedan nearby.
  He walked over to them, extended a hand, and said,
"Colonel Vincenti, Colonel Gaspar? I'm
Admiral Ian Hardcastle, U.s. Coast
Guard, retired." They shook hands, and
Hardcastle was introduced to the public affairs
officer and Vincenti's area defense counsel.
"I'm sorry for what happened to Major
McKenzie. I know what it's like to lose a good
crewman." The Air Force officers nodded without
saying anything--Hardcastle could easily read the
distrust in their eyes.
  "Colonel Vincenti, tell me about Henri
Cazaux."
  "Colonel Vincenti has been advised not
to speak with anyone else, Admiral," the area
defense counsel said.
  Hardcastle shot her an angry stare, then
turned back to Vincenti.
  "I need to know, Colonel," Hardcastle said.
"I'm a part of a Senate investigation into the
incident."
  "Another government investigation," Vincenti
scoffed. "Great.
  Just what we need."
  "We're not trying to pin the blame on you,
Colonel--I'm trying to pin the blame on where it
belongs: on the White House and the Pentagon,"
Hardcastle said. "I'm trying to get Congress and the
President to act seriously about national defense."
  "I appreciate that, Admiral," the area
defense counsel said, "but we're still not going
to discuss--"
  "One question, if that's okay with your ADC,"
Hardcastle said.
  Vincenti did not respond, but he did not
object, either. "You were the hunter, Colonel. You
had your prey in your sights. Now tell me about
Henri Cazaux."
  At first Vincenti didn't know what to make of this
tall, lean, ghostly-looking man. He had seen
Hardcastle on all the TV shows, of course, but
when Hardcastle said the word "hunter," he heard
something else. Yes .. . yes, Vincenti
thought. I know what he's talking about. Al
Vincenti knew about the mystique of the hunter.
  The hunter, at the moment of unleashing deadly
energy against his prey, forms a sort of mind-meld with
his quarry. Deer hunters feel it, experience the
synergism of minds linked together for a brief instant.
  Bombardiers sometimes feel as if they are on the
ground, watching their bombs fall on their own heads.
The inexperienced hunter can't handle it and gets
"target fixation" or the "shakes," and the spell is
broken and the quarry usually escapes. A young or
emotional bombardier that feels it turns to the
bottle, gets a Section 8, or gets a .45
and blows himself away.
  Vincenti remembered that Hardcastle had once
lined up lots of targets in the sights of his awesome
V-22 Sea Lion tilt-rotor
interceptors, so he definitely knew what it
felt like to search, track, find, pursue,
attack, and destroy a target--Jesus, he had
done it for real.
  Hardcastle had fired on many real targets.
Vincenti didn't know how many men he had killed,
but he knew he had killed before. He knew what it
was like. And so did Vincenti .. .
  "Defiance," Vincenti said. "No fear. Not at
any time did I feel fear from Henri Cazaux.
Even in his parachute. He was .. . happy.
  Satisfied. Ready to begin .. ."
  "Begin what, Colonel?"
  "I don't know, Admiral." Vincenti
shrugged. "I don't even know what I'm talking
about. You asked me what I felt when I thought about
Cazaux, and that's the first thing that popped into my head.
I wish I had taken him out. I won't miss
next time."
  As the group headed toward their cars to take them
to their first meeting, Lam Wilkes turned and
noticed Admiral Hardcastle talking with the
F-16 pilot involved in the previous night's
incident, along with his group commander. She excused
herself from the former Vice President and the Senator and
walked back to them.
  Hardcastle ignored her as she approached. "I
hope you get the chance, Colonel," Hardcastle
said as Wilkes got closer, a grim, angry
expression on her face, "but I rather doubt you will.
We'll meet again. No matter what the press
says, remember you've got someone on your side--

  "Excuse me, Admiral Hardcastle,"
Wilkes said testily, standing several paces away
from the group. "Can I have a word with you, please?"
  Hardcastle closed his notebook, shook hands with
both Vincenti and Gaspar, clasped Vincenti
reassuringly on the shoulder, and moved aside with
Wilkes until the crowd passed her by, with just a
few of Wilkes' aides remaining. The press had
left, and they were alone.
  The veteran Coast Guard flier extended a hand
to Lam Wilkes and said, "It's very nice to see you
again, Judge Wilkes."
  Wilkes put her hands on her narrow hips,
sliding her jacket open and slightly exposing a
shoulder holster with a small automatic pistol as
well as a slender waist and a firm bosom. With her
sunglasses now in place against the hot summer
sun, her lips red with a touch of lipstick, it was
hard not to notice that this tough lawmaker and civil
rights activist was a very beautiful woman. But, like
Sandra Geffar, his partner and co-commander of the old
Border Security Force and other good-looking
female public figures, Hardcastle knew that
a very tough woman still lurked under that beauty.
  "Listen, Admiral," Wilkes said
testily, "let's get something straight.
  I'm going along with this charade only because I've
got you and Martindale and Wescott in my face in
front of the press. Your Senate subcommittee
charter is a joke--it'll be nullified by the Vice
President before the day's out, and they might even
pass a law banning all such charters by the gavel.
You may not realize it, even Martindale may not
know it, but all this is a sham. I know it and
Wescott knows it. After that, you'll be off this base
and out of the picture-permanently."
  "That remains to be seen, Judge." Hardcastle
smiled.
  "So what is it you want, Hardcastle?"
Wilkes asked. "Is this just another publicity
stunt?"
  "No more of a stunt than trotting Colonel
Vincenti out here in front of the press, accusing him
of screwing up the mission, and then letting the press
feed on him," Hardcastle snapped. "I heard
your press conference, Judge, and I think you're
wrong: Henri Cazaux is not just "a merchant of
death," he is a homicidal maniac. He will
kill anyone to escape, including himself He has
no conception of the sanctity of life."
  "Spare me. We have a full psychological
profile on him, Admi
  "Then you
  haven't read it, Judge--because it would say that
trying to apprehend Cazaux would be a waste of
lives," Hardcastle continued. "He will slaughter
anyone within reach before taking his own life."
  "The Bureau has dealt with homicidal
personalities before, Admiral, and Cazaux is
no different." She sighed, rolling her eyes.
  "He's different, Judge, because he's got
access to aircraft, special weapons, and
sophisticated military expertise," Hardcastle
said.
  "He can begin a reign of terror the likes of which
this country has never seen before."
  "Listen, Admiral, I'm sorry, but I
don't have the time for your pro-military speeches--
I've got an investigation to run," Wilkes said
impatiently. "We will deal with whatever he throws
at us--and we'll do it without using the military, without
big, expensive tilt-rotor aircraft loaded
with machine guns and guided missiles, without
one-hundred-million-dollar oil platforms which are
now gathering barnacles and rust out in the
Gulf of Mexico, without blimps with radars on
them, and without weird robot helicopters that
crash-land every time you turn around. Unlike former
so-called law enforcement agencies, the FBI
doesn't feel as if we have to harass and scare
half the law-abiding population just to find one
slimeball." Her indirect jab at the
Hammerheads, Hardcastle's high-tech drug
interdiction and Border Security Force, was fully
intentional and heartfelt: Wilkes had always
believed the military had no place in law
enforcement, and that the rights of all individuals--the
accused as well as the innocent--needed to be
protected at all times.
  "But let me remind you of a few things,
Admiral," the FBI Director went on. "This
is my investigation. I am running the show here. I
will not hesitate to throw your tail off this base and
into a federal lockup if you try to interfere with my
investigation while you're part of this Senate probe.
You are not to talk with the crews, you are not to talk with the
commanders, you are not to talk with the press about anything you
see or hear. Charter or no charter, I'll have you
arrested for interfering with an FBI investigation. I
may not be able to hold you for long, what with
David Brinkley and Larry King, your good TV
talk-show buddies, on my ass, but it'll be long
enough to disrupt your TV schedule. Is all that clear,
Admiral?"
  "Yes, it's very clear, Judge," Hardcastle
replied. "But I've got one thing to say to you.
I've seen this once before. Agusta Salazar
Pablo Escobar, Manuel Noriega--they all
thought they could take on the United States and win.
Henri Cazaux will hide behind the Bill of Rights and
use it to get what he wants. Don't let it
happen now.
  Use all the forces you have available."
  "You're paranoid, Hardcastle. Why don't you
run for office?
  You'd fit right in." She spun on a heel and
stepped away from Hardcastle as quickly as she could.
  The former Vice President's limousine was
waiting for Hardcastle, and he joined up with them a
few moments later. "Well, how did it go,
Ian?" Martindale asked Hardcastle as he sat
down opposite the Vice President, beside
Senator Heyerdahl.
  "I don't think she's going to cooperate."
Hardcastle sighed.
  "We're going to have to battle her every step of the
way."
  "Too bad," Martindale said.
  Hardcastle said, "I think I scared her a
bit, and that pissed her off."
  "Well, she's certain to go to the White House and
vent now," Heyerdahl concluded. "Our charter will be
history by the end of the day, after the press has gone
to bed for the night." She turned to Hardcastle and said,
"Wilkes is a very powerful and very dangerous
opponent." Hardcastle said, "She's tough, and
strong, and beautiful.
  The press loves her. But as tough as she is,
Henri Cazaux is tougher.
  And in a battle of wills, his is superior."
  "How do you know this Cazaux so well, Ian?"
Wescott, seated next to the former Vice
President, asked. "You chase him when you were with the
Hammerheads?"
  "We'd received a bit of intelligence about him,"
Hardcastle replied.
  "We thought he might begin working with Salazar's
Cuchillos pilots, using military hardware
to protect drug shipments. Cazaux was trained
to fly everything from Mirage fighters
to Huey helicopters, and he was one of Europe's
top commando instructors.
  Cazaux never moved in, and I lost track of
him when the Border Security Force was disbanded. But
I know a few Henri Cazauxs, Congressman
Wescott, and a few Agusta Salazars."
  "I have no doubt that you'd like to see every one of these
sleazoids in prison, or better, at the bottom
of the deepest ocean you can find," Kevin Martindale
said. "But let's keep our ultimate objective
in mind--to call attention to the current
Administration's piss-poor military utilization
and lack of military planning. But we don't
want to look like armchair quarterbacks to the press.
  "We're here to observe, yes," Martindale
went on, affixing a stern glare on all of those around
him in the limo, "but our attitude should be that we've
got a better way. So the question facing us all during
our trip here is simple: if we were in the
driver's seat, what would we be doing better?
Faced with the threat from Henri Cazaux ourselves, what
would we be doing that the current Administration isn't?
We shit in Lam Wilkes' cornflakes
by crashing her press conference, but in fact the
President is doing pretty much what
I'd expect--call for a massive manhunt,
order the FBI Director to set up a command
center in the area and personally coordinate the
investigation. So far, we'd be doing the same thing as
the current White House residents.
  "We need a specific plan of action, something
we can point to and say, "The President should be doing
this," and the American people lean forward toward their
TVS and respond, "Yeah, the dipshit, he should
be doing that, I'm voting for Martindale in
ninety-six."
  Everyone got the picture?" There were nodding heads
and "Yes, sirs" all around. "Okay, good.
Comments?"
  "Judging by Wilkes" attitude, I'd say
the Administration is treating this as a random,
isolated, one-in-a-million incident,"
Hardcastle surmised. "Focus of the FBI'S
investigation will be the coordination of the federal agencies
involved--actually, their lack of cooperation.
  Wilkes has already tipped her hand by trotting
Vincenti and Gaspar out in front of the press--no
doubt Vincenti's record in Europe will be
"leaked," and everyone will make the same conclusion--
that Vincenti screwed up. The federal
government, and the Air Force in particular, will
tolerate deaths, simply to avoid a general
panic."
  "You mentioned something about him on the way out here,"
Martindale said. "What was it again?"
  "Vincenti was flying F-4 Phantoms up in
Iceland--this was just before Gorbachev came to power,"
Hardcastle explained. "He scrambled on a
Badger bomber that he found flying low-level across
the ice pack.
  The Defense Early Warning radars were out, but he
did the pursuit on his own and shoots the damned thing
down."
  "You're kidding! I never heard about that."
  "Hardly anyone did," Hardcastle explained.
"Turns out the bomber was a rogue--a crew of
fliers sympathetic to Andropov wanted to start World
War Three by bombing U.s. bases in Iceland.
  They had nukes on board, but they say they never
would have gone "But Vincenti's not a hero in this story,
right?"
  "Yes, sir. Problem was, Vincenti never
got clearance to shoot-no communications between the
controllers and the plane.
  Vincenti just went ahead and did it, much
like the incident last night.
  He gets a reputation as a hero with the crew
dogs, but a wild-dog reputation with the brass. The
Badger shoot-down is highly classified--"
  "But the Pentagon's recollection of Vincenti
isn't," Martindale finished for him. "Vincenti
can't follow orders. Vincenti likes to shoot first
and ask questions later. Question, Ian: is he a wild
dog?"
  "No, sir, he's not--but my reputation is not
exactly fresh and clean either," Hardcastle said with a
wry smile. "In my opinion, putting on my
pundit's hat for a moment, I think it would be
ill-advised for you to openly support Vincenti.
But I want to consult with him on a regular
basis. He knows his shit, and he will be very valuable
to us and the Air Force when Cazaux tries to take
on the authorities again."
  "Wait a minute, Ian .. . So you don't
think this is a random incident?" Martindale asked
Hardcastle. He was getting nervous already--his
high-profile military guy was thinking in a totally
unexpected direction, and with more press conferences
scheduled for that day, he had to be brought up to speed
immediately. "Just bad luck that Cazaux hit
that terminal with a cargo plane and killed several
hundred people .. . ?"
  "Sir, I can't explain it, but talking with
Colonel Vincenti, the F-16 pilot that chased
Cazaux's cargo plane, I wonder if this is the
last we'll hear from him," Hardcastle said.
"Cazaux is not going to dive underground."
  As enthusiastic as they were about pointing out the
inadequacies of the current White House
Administration's military policies, the others in
the limo were not at all ready to agree with the former
Coast Guard and Border Security Force
officer. The former Vice President ran his fingers
through his hair in exasperation. "Jesus, Ian,"
Martindale exclaimed, giving him a tired
smile, "I pray you're wrong."
  There was no more time for discussion, because just then the
limousine pulled up to the aircraft hangar turned
investigation center, and the members of the Senate
subcommittee task force began to step out. The
line of twelve hangars on the parking ramp at
Beale Air Force Base once housed the
SR-71 Blackbird spy planes, which were the
fastest air-breathing aircraft in the world before the
advent of the still-classified SR-91
Aurora. "A minute, Mr. Vice
President," Hardcastle said. Martindale let
everyone else out, and the Secret Service agent
closed the door again.
  "Spit it out, Admiral."
  "Sir, you know that I believe in your
campaign," Hardcastle said easily. "No one
was happier than I to see you at our board of
directors meeting, getting involved, helping
to raise money for the Task Force, all that. I know
publicly you haven't announced if you're going
to run in ninety-six, but I feel you will, and I'm
one hundred and ten percent behind you all the way."
  "I hear a big "b"' coming .. ."
  "Yes, sir. Bt, after speaking with Vincenti,
I realized that we are not faced simply with gathering
ammunition to use against the current Administration--
we need to formulate a policy to make sure that
attacks like last night don't happen again."
  "Attacks? They weren't attacks, Ian, it
was the act of a madman trying to escape pursuit,"
Martindale scoffed. "The odds of Cazaux blowing
up another airport in this country are .. . well,
hell, they've got to be astronomical."
  "I don't think so, sir,"
Hardcastle said. "I think he'll strike again.
  I think we need to set up a program to defend
this country's major airports from attack. With
all due respect, sir, I need to know if you're
serious about responding to the threat, or if this is just
a way to make some political hay until you're
ready to throw your hat in the ring."
  "Christ, Hardcastle, ease up a bit with that
rhetoric--and the threats," Martindale said, motioning
with his body that he was ready to get out of the car. "First
of all, whatever use I have for my activities with
you and the Project 2000 Task Force is part of
my campaign.
  You and the membership agreed to spearhead my
campaign. Like it or not, I'm in it, and I'm
calling the shots. You know I'm serious about national
defense, Ian. When I joined forces with the Task
Force, you agreed to my terms. You and the other Task
Force members fall in line with me or I walk--
it's as simple as that.
  Understand?"
  "Yes, sir."
  "I'm Kevin to you, Ian," Martindale said.
"Both now and when I'm in the White House. And
I am going to the White House, my friend,
let there be no doubt about that.
  "As for my thoughts on Cazaux: So far I
haven't seen any evidence indicating the beginning of a
wave of terrorism. We start creating fear like that,
and we'll look bad. Hell, even if we're
right, we'll look like doomsayers. I don't
want to start putting Patriot missiles on the
front lawn of the White House, Ian--all I
want to do is point out to the people of this country that the
current President's got his head up his ass when
it comes to the application of military force and his
support for the military." Martindale paused for a
moment, then seemed to decide to go ahead and say what
was on his mind--Kevin Martindale never had any
trouble keeping his feelings to himself: "Frankly,
Ian, your alarm-ringing reputation is well known in
town.
  I'm not saying you're wrong, but I feel a lot
of people might be turning you off. It's been less than
twenty-four hours since the attack.
  Let's not come to any really dire conclusions
until we get some more concrete evidence. Okay?"
  "That's fine, sir," Hardcastle said. "I'll
stand by my reputation and my opinions."
  "Don't get me wrong, Ian,"
Martindale added. "I consider you a valuable
asset, and your thoughts mean a lot to me. But let
me make the decisions and the public announcements,
okay?"
  "Yes, sir," Hardcastle said. He exited the
limousine, but turned to face Martindale just before the
former Vice President stepped out.
  "But think about this, sin-what if Henri Cazaux
strikes again?
  Then what will you be prepared to do to stop him?"
  Martindale had already been psyching himself up to get
ready to speak with the press that had assembled outside
the hangar being used to headquarter the FBI'S
investigation, so he really wasn't fully listening
to Hardcastle--until that very last sentence. If
Cazaux did return, if this was only the beginning
and not the end of a horrible nightmare, then what could be
done to stop it?
  "Damn it, Hardcastle .. ." the former Vice
President of the United States muttered.
Ignoring Admiral Ian Hardcastle was never an
option.
  Newburgh, New York Later That Day The
sleepy little town of Newburgh, about an hour's
drive north of New York City, was the
perfect place for an American terrorist base
of operations. The small city of twenty thousand was
easily accessible to New York City
by Thruway, train, overland, or even via the
nearby Hudson River, but it was much smaller and
much more rural than a typical New York City
bedroom community, offering lots of seclusion and
privacy. Newburgh's first-class airfield,
Stewart International, had direct flights to La
Guardia; Chicago; Washington, D.c.;
Raleigh-Durham International;
Hartsfield-Atlanta; and even Toronto and
Montreal, but it had fewer than a dozen arrivals
and departures a day. The U.s. Military
Academy at West Point was just a few miles
away, and the resorts and ski areas of the Catskills
were just a few hours away.
  Passengers liked Stewart International
Airport because it was so easygoing and efficient--
Henri Cazaux liked Stewart because security there
was relatively lax, which made the little airport the
perfect place to run a small-scale smuggling
operation, or smuggle weapons into the commercial air
system. Cazaux had often smuggled a fully
loaded Uzi right through security in a
briefcase by partially disassembling it and packing it in
a candy or gift box with a gold foil wrapper--the
wrapper shielded the contents from the X rays, and the
guards never bothered to hand-check, especially during
the early morning rush-hour confusion of commuters on
their way to New York, Boston, or Washington.
  The old "gun-in-the-Bible" trick worked every time.
If Cazaux ever considered hijacking a plane, it
would be from Stewart International.
  There were a lot of other factors: the large amount
of general aviation activity at the airport, with
small planes taxiing and parking very close
to commercial traffic, made transporting contraband
onto an airliner from the aircraft parking ramp
easy; the amount of wooded area and the isolation of many
parts of the base from all but roving security; the
number of large, isolated vacant buildings and
hangars on the airport; and the relative safety
and security everyone felt by having a large New
York State Police, U.s. Army, and Air
Force Reserve contingent stationed there at Stewart.
Cazaux used that complacency to his advantage many
times. He once dressed like a USAIR baggage
handler, commandeered a baggage tractor, and personally
loaded several hundred pounds of contraband
aboard planes parked at the gates, and was never
challenged. He had done the same with an Air
Force Reserve military cargo plane, posing as
a crew chief on a C-5A Galaxy
transport. Cazaux stole whole pallets of
weapons and equipment right off the back of the giant
transports with a forklift, and was never challenged or
questioned.
  More importantly, the little city was quiet and
peaceful--it was a good jumping-off point to just about
anyplace in the world, but it was also a good place
to lay low and think and plan. That's why when Henri
Cazaux safely made it out of Albuquerque,
he booked a flight--not a direct flight, but a
circuitous route to Chicago to Cleveland
to Pittsburgh--and then on to his base of U.s.
operations in Newburgh. He needed to get the roar
of the destruction he had caused in California, the
smell of gunpowder and blood and burning
civilization, all out of his head for a while.
  There were two other reasons for Henri Cazaux
to come to Newburgh, of course. It was a convenient
place to meet with his logistics officer, a
private Wall Street trader named Harold
Lake. When a face-to-face meeting was
needed, Lake could be in Newburgh in an hour and a
half, and banking transactions begun by Lake in a
satellite brokerage house in Newburgh at
noon would be on the books and in the system by close
of business. Cazaux felt too trapped, too
surrounded in New York City itself--Newburgh was
more to his liking, large enough to allow him to blend into with the
citizens but small and isolated enough to remain
anonymous.
  The second reason was Madame Rocci,
M.m. Her real name, he knew, was jo Ann
Vega. The "M.m." stood for Minister of
Metaphysics--it sounded like a phony show title
or something out of a 1940's B-grade movie, but
it was not. She was, and had been for several years, the
psychic for the world's most dangerous criminal.
  For all of Henri Cazaux's intelligence,
military training, life experience, toughness, and
survival instinct, his one foible, his one departure
from clear, perfectly objective analytical
thought, was in the realm of astrology--but of course
Cazaux would not consider astrology a "weird"
science. An astrologer in Denmark whom he
visited while in high school told him he would be
a great military man--he decided to go
into the military based on the woman's advice.
During a United Nations deployment to Africa
while in the Belgian First Para, another
astrologer in Zaire, a shaman, told him he
would be a great leader of men, known far and wide for his
deeds. Since going into business himself, he had
consulted with an astrologer once or twice a
year. Their predictions were uncannily accurate,
he thought, and he had never made a bad move based
on their words.
  He had met Madame Vega three years
earlier. During a rare time traveling on foot
during daylight hours--tactical considerations
absolutely forbade travel on roads during
daylight except in an emergency--Cazaux had
ducked into the back door of her tiny storefront
parlor while getting out of sight of a State
Police cruiser.
  He surprised Vega as she came out of the
bathroom, but she did not challenge him or try
to throw him out. She seemed to know instantly that he was
on the run and being pursued. She showed no fear, and
offered him instant coffee and two-day-old donuts
purchased from the thrift shop down the street, the
only things she had to eat in her small
kitchen.
  Vega was in her early fifties, with long dark
kinky hair streaked with gray and with small colored
beads braided in her hair near her temples,
large round dark eyes, a round, pretty face,
large round breasts, strong fingers and hands, a firm
waist and buttocks, and slender legs.
  She looked gypsyish, and said her family were
Jewish refugees from Czechoslovakia. Vega
did not complain when Cazaux checked the house, the
exits, and looked for evidence that she had a boyfriend,
roommate, children, or husband living with her. She said
she knew that he was afraid, that he was in danger, but
that he would eventually prevail, and she would help
any way she could.
  All he wanted to do was hide and sleep. She
showed him a hiding place in the attic, which he
accepted--after finding at least three ways to escape
--and rested. When he awoke, she was waiting for him.
  While he slept, she had done a complete
astrological analysis on him.
  He was interested but skeptical--until she
started to speak about the life of Henri Cazaux.
She predicted his birthdate within a week, his time
of birth within two hours, and his country of
birth exactly--he was born at a hospital in
the Netherlands, although raised in Belgium: she
guessed all this.
  Being Henri Cazaux, and cautious, he
realized Vega could have researched his past--Cazaux
was beginning to get a reputation in America equal
to the one he had in Europe, although at the time he was
not well known outside federal law-enforcement
circles. But it would have taken a lot of work and a
lot of time, far more than what a near-destitute
storefront swami in Newburgh, New York,
could ever do.
  No, she had learned about him simply from looking
at the man, then reading her astrological books and
putting the terrifying, mystifying pieces together. She
talked about his military past, his fearlessness, his
lack of regard for others. She talked about his
brutal success, his drive for perfection, his
intensity. She knew he had once been married, but
had no children despite his desire to have them.
  But that was only the beginning--of what she had to say,
and of the astounding accuracy of her predictions: With the
Sun, the blood planet Mars--named after the
mythical god of wan-the planet jupiter, and the
upper limb of the Moon all in the
constellation Scorpio at the time of his birth, Henri
Cazaux was a quadruple Scorpio--highly
intelligent, secretive, passionate, and powerful.
Vega had never seen a chart like his before. If a
person could pick all the traits he or she ever
desired--the tendency toward great wealth, tremendous
sexual energy, animal determination, godlike
invincibility, and intelligent introspection--
Henri Cazaux had them. Only a few men in
history ever had an astrological chart like
Cazaux--such multiple-planet generals like
Napoleon Bonaparte, Ulysses, and Alexander,
politicians like Hitler and Lincoln, military
thinkers like Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz. His
astrological chart was confirmed by a palm reading and the
tarot, but one look at the man would be confirmation enough
for anyone. And if his scarred body did not say that
his past lay in some expertise in the combat arms, his
chart definitely said his future would be in warfare.
  Mars ruled his chart, and all other "peaceful"
signs and planets and influences were nowhere to be
seen.
  Usually Cazaux liked to "rate"
astrologers by how many guesses they got correct
--he could not even begin to do this with Jo Ann
Vega.
  It was as if she had written his biography, and
then written his eulogy and epitaph. The future
she painted was not bright. It was filled with adventure,
and excitement, and wealth, and power, but it was a short,
violent, lonely life. She said she understood all
of those things, and said her life was rich and full
despite her loneliness.
  She also seemed to understand perfectly when he
attacked her.
  She was so good at her profession that now she knew
too much, and when the snarling, cornered beast in
Cazaux emerged, she accepted it with professional
patience.
  Other than killing, raping a woman is
tactically the best way to ensure her silence--few
women report a rape, especially if they are
alone. It is usually the best way to terrorize a
woman into silence and cooperation. Cazaux was forceful
and violent, but was careful not to cause any visible
wounds that might compel others to act. He made her
undress for him, made her perform fellatio on
him, made her spread her legs and beg him to rape
her-not because he enjoyed any of it or thought she might
enjoy acting submissive, but because it
further implicated her, further shamed her, gave
her more events of which most women will not speak, more things
for a woman's consciousness to work harder to suppress.
As helpless as she was, she was, in a horrible and
brutal way, a party to what was happening to her.
  The rape was an act of violence--none of it could
be considered in the least sexual--but the motivation was not
robbery or murder or assault or any other
crime. It was an initiation into the life of the world's
greatest terrorist, a message that she was now,
willingly or not, an acolyte of Henri
Cazaux's, a minister to the human incarnation of
Satan himself. She could accept the fact, and live,
or deny it, and die--but he did not have to tell her
these things.jo Ann Vega-in fact, all of
Cazaux's helpless victims--knew this when they
looked into the killer's eyes. The rape was an act
of violence, yes, but it was more of a promise of the
violence to come if the spell was broken.
  He made her clean him with her mouth, then departed
without saying a word--no threats, no taunting, no
innuendos--leaving a small throwing knife stuck
into the woodwork around the window behind the back door.
  It was a tiny warning to her, and a promise that he
would return.
  He did return, two to three times a year.
The violence was gone, and they became lovers. They
slept and bathed together, experimented with sex, and
talked about each other's worlds in intimate detail.
  Making love with Henri Cazaux was like trying
to wrestle with a bonfire or control a crashing ocean
wave--the heat, the power, the sheer energy he released
was enormous. Vega was his spiritual adviser, his
charge of quarters, his aide-de-camp, but she also
got to experience the man when he unleashed his raw,
unchained spirit only toward her, and no one else.
  Although they shared each other's passion, he was never
close-"settling down" was never an option, although he
did see to her needs and offered a level of
security and protection unlike any other man in
the world.
  He provided her with money--not enough to leave her little
storefront or call attention to herself--but enough so she
would not have to rely on reading horoscopes
to survive. Some of Vega's enemies--a city
councilman who tried to have her kicked out of the city for
being a drug dealer because she had refused to run a
house of prostitution for him, a neighbor kid who
liked to get drunk and would occasionally try to break
her door down to get at her-both
mysteriously disappeared. Jo Ann had never mentioned
them to Cazaux.
  Jo Ann knew that Henri Cazaux was coming
to her, knew this visit would be different. She often
read his cards in between visits and she had just completed
a reading on him before she had learned of the attack in
San Francisco. She knew he had engineered the
attack long before the news told the world so. The
cards told of fire, and blood, and darkness. They
did not tell of his death, as they usually did. In
fact, none of the dark elements of Cazaux's chart
--a short lifespan, pain, loneliness--were
present. The man coming to visit her soon was a man
no longer--he had been transformed. The cards said
so.
  It was dark outside, and the rain was pounding down so
hard it was forcing itself into the house through closed windows.
Vega was just finishing a cigarette in her tiny living
roomstbedroom between the partition to the reading parlor and the
kitchen, and was heading back to the kitchen to clean out the
ashtray, when she turned and saw him standing in the
doorway, watching her. He was already naked from the
waist up--he had obviously been there several
minutes, judging by the size of the puddle of water under
his feet--but he was as silent as a snake.
A small automatic pistol was stuck in his jeans
waistband.
  "Welcome home, Henriea"...Jo Ann said, a
touch of warmth in her eyes and voice. "I'm glad
to see you." He did not respond. That was typical
--he rarely said ten words to her even on a chatty
day. He looked thinner, but his chest was as muscular
as ever, his stomach as rippled and hard as an
old-fashioned washboard. He had shaved off all
his hair. He changed his hair length and style
often, although military short-cropped hair was his
norm. But Vega's eyes were drawn back to his
chest, his rock-hard arms, and his flat stomach.
  For a brief instant, she felt her nipples
erect and felt the slight ache of desire between her
legs. She looked into his eyes, and the questions in her
head only continued. Cazaux's eyes were on fire
--not from anger, or from fear, but from desire. Was it
sexual desire?
  Sometimes she could feel the heat of his need from across
a room--Scorpios were all powerful sexual
animals, and multiple Scorpios sometimes had
an aura of sexual energy that was palpable. Henri
was soaking wet, but he was definitely on fire ..

  No, it was not sexual energy this time. He was after
something else, something much more significant than jo
Ann. The fire in his eyes seemed to come from
visualizing something so vividly that you could see it,
touch it.
  "Get out of those wet clothes," she suggested.
"I'll make us some tea.
  I have hamburger if you're hungry."
  As if he had read her thoughts, he pulled the
gun from his waistband, then unbuttoned his jeans and
pulled them down to the floor.
  My God, Vega breathed, he was
magnificent! But her eyes were drawn from the bulge
between his legs to the bandages wrapped around his left
leg, with quarter-sized spots of blood soaking
through.
  "Henri, you're hurt. Go into the bedroom." The
big man silently complied.
  After drying the floor carefully with a dishtowel and
putting his wet clothes in the washer so no one would
notice or question the mess, Jo Ann brought
hydrogen peroxide, hydrocortisone cream, and
fresh bandages to him. She found him standing naked beside
her bed, his injured leg up on the bed, peeling off
the old dressing.
  She sat down on the bed and examined the wound. It
was long and deep, like a hot poker or sword had
been slashed across his calf.
  Blood mixed with water and dirt had caked
inside the gash itself-this was going to be difficult and
painful to clean.
  "This was from the chase with the Air Force, wasn't
it?"
  "Yes," he replied simply. The news of the
incredible disaster in San Francisco had of course
reached Newburgh. It had been page one in the
nation's newspapers, and the lead story on all the
networks and CNN.
  The dragnet was out for Cazaux, but they were
concentrating enos on his way to Mexico.
  "You came to me for advice," she said, as if
reading from Cazaux's unwritten Daytimer itinerary.
"You are meeting with your senior staff to plan something
.. . but not to hide. You intend on i: .
  , ..
  attacking .. . attacking many targets, many
persons. I saw much blood in your charts, much
destruction. Why, Henri? Is it revenge?
  I did not see a clear reason .. ."
  "You know the reason, Madame Vega,"
Cazaux hissed in a low voice.
  "You know damned well."
  "Oui, mon cher, "Vega responded soothingly,
feeling her nipples harden and the lonely region between
her legs grow hot and wet. Oh yes, she knew
very well why Henri was on the warpath .. .
  Henri had been a very bad little boy when he was
younger. A bastard born in a country foreign to both
his parents, now living in a foreign country,
Cazaux was a ballistic missile without a
guidance system--lots of energy but no sense of
direction, no clear path, no destination. He
amused himself by stealing and vandalism, and by the age of
fifteen had become an accomplished criminal,
roaming much of western Europe. He stayed out of the
hands of the authorities until 1977. While
trying to deal hashish to a U.s. Air Force
F-4 Phantom maintenance crew near
Antwerp, Belgium, he was caught by Air Force
security police and taken to their brig. The Air
Force sky cops could not charge him, only release
him to the local gendarmes as soon as possible. The
Americans had seen many locals get away with
vandalism and other crimes because the American
military forces had no authority .. .
but, either because of manpower shortages, the holidays,
or indifference, the local cops had no one to take
the boy until Monday, so he stayed in the Air
Force brig.
  It was the opportunity the Americans had been
waiting for to vent their own frustrations at being away in
a foreign land among foreign peoples .. .
  For the next forty-eight hours, Henri Cazaux
had been passed back and forth between the security
police teams so they could practice their
"interrogation techniques." Cazaux was stuffed
into fifty-five-gallon barrels, hosed down
naked with icy cold water from fire hoses, questioned
by teams of interrogators for hours at a time, made
to kneel naked on bricks while chained to concrete
pillars, and ordered to dig his own grave and then
buried alive in mock firing-squad executions.
  He was never beaten, never physically harmed .. .
  .. . until the nights, the long, awful nights,
when Cazaux was alone with just one or two guards in
an isolated part of the brig where no one could hear him
scream. Then they took turns with him, tying the
strong, lean, handsome young man up to a table and performing
the ultimate degradation on him again and again, sometimes
with a nightstick, sometimes with a broken broom
handle and, ultimately, the engorged penises of the
men themselves. If they were afraid of the shift commander
hearing the prisoner's screams or cries for help,
they would order the prisoner to suck on the end of a
Colt M1911 pistol while they ravaged him--
soon, Cazaux was praying they'd just pull the
trigger and put him out of his misery.
  Of course, Jo Ann Vega invented most of the
more lurid details of the ordeal in her own fertile,
twisted mind. Henri Cazaux had been
imprisoned and abused for two days in the hands of the
American Air Force, that much was known--exactly
what had happened to him, Cazaux never said beyond
only the vaguest hints. It certainly explained his
bloodthirsty attitude toward the Americans, his
intense fear and revulsion to the thought of capture, and
his intense desire for revenge.
  In her own way, Vega relished the idea of some
big black soldier treating Henri like a
ten-dollar whore .. . It was a fantasy that got
her wet just thinking about it.
  In any case, the Antwerp incarceration was for
Cazaux's third felony crime. He had a
choice--ten years in the Auxiliaries (the
virtual slave-labor arm of the
Belgian Army), or ten years in prison.
  Cazaux willingly, even happily, joined the
Auxiliaries. He reformed himself enough to join the
regular army, then the First Para, the
special-operations quick-strike brigade known as the
Red Berets, flight school, and even received a
commission. He stayed on an extra two years after
his now long-forgotten sentence, then, as with most
soldiers, he was given a Reserve assignment.
He left the regular army a finely tuned,
well-trained, precision killing machine--and as
mentally twisted as a Swiss mountain road.
  "I need to know if my plans of destruction will be
successful, Madame Vega," Cazaux said.
"I need your advice. I cannot issue commands to my
staff without some assurances that my plans will be
successful."
  "I saw much blood, much destruction," Vega
said. "I saw death, Henri, lots of death--but I
did not see yours, although death is all around you. I
saw the wings of the angel of death, the dark master,
sweeping across the skies in a fiery chariot, driven
by you."
  "Your visions are not helping me, Jo Ann,"
Cazaux said irritably.
  "All I need to know is, will my campaign be
successful?" he soaked a clean gauze pad with
hydrogen peroxide and, without warning or fanfare,
scrubbed the exposed wound to loosen the blood and
dirt.
  Fresh water was necessary to clear away the bubbling
flesh, but Cazaux did not cry out or even flinch
from what had to be incredible pain. "I can see
exposed muscle, Henri," Jo Ann said.
"You'll need stitches and antibiotics."
  "Runyon," Cazaux replied. She nodded.
Lewis Runyon was a decertified physician
who had tried to set her up as a drug dealer
until Cazaux caught up with him. Rather than kill
him, he convinced him to become the Cazaux operation's
medical officer, and now lived in Newark, New
Jersey, under the watchful eyes of Cazaux's
lieutenants.
  "Continue to clean the wound, and pack it tightly.
I need to travel within the hour."
  "All right." She made no attempt to be
gentle, but used her weight to scrub the wound until
it bled. She knew she was working harder than necessary--
was she trying to cause him pain? Why?
  "Tell me what you are thinking, Jo
Ann," Cazaux ordered.
  "You have not answered my question, and you are bound as my
spiritual adviser to do so."
  She looked up at him, her eyes pausing for a
moment on his naked crotch before affixing on his
stone-hard face. "I see more blood in your chart,
Henri," she said. "I see much more blood, by your
hands."
  "Yes, yes," he responded impatiently.
"My campaign?"
  "Have you taken any drugs, any painkillers,
any cocaine?" She knew the answer to that even before
his flaming eyes rested on hers.
  Henri Cazaux never did drugs except for
antibiotics and aspirin.
  She touched the leg wound again, with her fingernail.
The touch did not register in even one muscle in his
angular face. "You have transcended pain,
Henri," she said. She wrapped her hand around his
calf, stroking his leg. "I see other human
traits that are now missing in your soul. You have been
touched by Death, Henri, and for some reason, the dark
master has released you--for now."
  "Yes," he said, his eyes widening as he
accepted her words as truth.
  He couldn't rationalize it before, but her words
confirmed what he was thinking: the mission he had just
completed, escaping the jaws of death so narrowly as
he did, had changed him.
  "You have completed a deal with the Devil," she
continued as she stroked his right leg, then kissed his
left leg, then stroked his rock-hard buttocks.
"You have traded what was left of your humanity for a
few extra days of life. Show me your right hand."
She opened his right hand when he extended it to her. A
fresh three-inch-long burn, caused by his grip
on the nylon webbing of his parachute risers during his
low-altitude bailout over San Francisco
International, was etched across his palm, perfectly
perpendicular to his already very short lifeline. "Here
is the signed contract, Henri. You didn't know this
wound was here, did you?" Obviously he did not, because
he stared at the cut. "I don't know how long you
have--maybe hours, maybe days.
  Perhaps only .. . minutes."
  His eyes flared, knowing she had added that last warning
selfishly, that she wanted the next few minutes with
him.
  "No--longer," she admitted. "I see
blood, too, a lot of blood.
  Not all of it is yours."
  "It won't be. I can guarantee that."
  "This is a serious contract, Henri, a contract
with the dark master," Jo Ann said angrily,
returning to her nursing. "The contract is
irrevocable. The dark master offers you incredible
strength, a life without pain, with a tireless body, with
sharp eyes. He demands a price for these gifts."
  "A price? From me?"
  "Yes, damn you, the ultimate price--your very
life, your future, was she said. "Your soul is
already his--now he wants control of your mind.
  He gave you these gifts because he wants to turn
you loose on the mortal world, taking your revenge."
  "That's exactly what I intend to do."
  Her eyes flared, and she took a deep breath as
the excitement welled in her chest. He could do it,
she thought. "Then do it, Henri," Vega said.
"I'm telling you, Henri, you've been chosen by the
dark master to carry out a baptism of fire on
planet Earth. He has given you the gift of
freedom from mortal pain. You will not feel hunger,
or pain, or weariness. You will defy the laws of
nature. You will see with the eyes of a hawk, hear with the
ears of a wolf, move with the speed of a
cheetah. You will think like no other general has ever
done before.
  It is time to set it all into motion, Henri."
  "I have already set it in motion, Jo Ann,"
Cazaux said, his voice as deep and hollow as if
from the bottom of a grave. "Death from the skies, from
nowhere, from everywhere. Men think they have conquered the sky;
I say they will fear the skies, fear the machines and the
physics that carry them aloft. My lack of pain
is the sign that I have been given this assignment and that
I must carry it out."
  "Turn your hatred into blood-lust, Henri,"
Vega pleaded with him.
  "You're not just a soldier, not a machine--you're the
sword of Satan.
  Be all that he has commanded you to be. Do it. Do
it!"
  She saw the smile creep to his lips, and it was
then that she noticed his erection, and she knew he had
indeed changed. Henri Cazaux was not interested in
aides, or soulmates, or advisers--he was
interested in conquest. The dark master had told him that
anything he desired was within his grasp. She had
confirmed the voice. Now he was going to act upon that
advice.
  Her blouse and brassiere ripped off her body
in his grasp as easily as if they were of paper. The
creature inside Henri Cazaux was free once
again, and this time there was no restraining it.
  An hour later, Jo Ann Vega wondered with the
darkest sense of doom if the country would survive
what Henri Cazaux had in mind for it. If the
pain and the blood she had just experienced was going to be
multiplied by even a fraction of this country's three
hundred million inhabitants, she knew that it
could very well not survive his onslaught.
  Near Bedminster, New Jersey That Evening "That
is what I desire," Cazaux told the men
assembled around him.
  The staff meeting was in an isolated house in
rural New Jersey, owned by Harold Lake through
several layers of U.s. and offshore corporations,
as safe from government scrutiny as possible. The
night was warm and humid, but Cazaux's security
forces kept all of the windows and doors tightly
closed. Human and canine patrols roamed the
thirty-acre walled and gated estate, and
electronic trip wires and sensors ringed the
compound. Every room of the seven bedroom home was
occupied by an armed guard who constantly
checked in with a security monitor.
  The men present were members of Cazaux's
"senior staff," organized much like an army
battalion headquarters with operations and plans,
intelligence, logistics, transportation,
maintenance, security, and munitions staff officer.
Of all of them, Harold Lake--who did not
consider himself a staff officer but was generally in charge
of procurement, purchasing, and finances for
Cazaux's organization-had been with the organization
the longest. Surrounded by some of the world's most wanted
terrorists, smugglers, murderers, and mercenaries,
Lake was definitely the most out-of-place person
there.
  The "security officer," Tomas Ysidro, was
probably the most notorious officer besides
Cazaux himself, and Lake had to be careful at all
times to not do or say anything to piss the bastard off.
Born and raised in Mexico, Ysidro had been
one of the Colombian drug cartel's deadliest
enforcers before joining Cazaux's small army, and he
was quickly elevated to a status very nearly equal
to Cazaux himself simply because no one else dared
challenge him. Ysidro was in charge of recruitment
and training, and his tactics and forms of
discipline were a lot harsher than anything the
Colombian drug lords used. Only Henri
Cazaux's strength and sheer force of superior will could
keep Ysidro's psychopathic tendencies in
check. They were like two peas in a pod.
  "Henri, you're insane," Lake declared. "I
don't believe it.
  You want to blow up three major airports in
the United States?"
  "What I want is revenge on the United
States government for chasing me like a scared
rabbit," Cazaux said. "What I want is
to see the people of this country tremble when they hear my
name. What I want is to see this country, this
so-called democracy, destroyed by its own
military forces. They shot at me, Lake, they
dared shoot at me!
  I want to destroy the American military
by creating fear and distrust in them by their own people. I
want to show the world what kind of butchers and wild
dogs they really ale."
  "Hey, Henri, you want it, you got it,"
Ysidro said, taking his first post-meeting slug of
bourbon from a bottle. "Man, this is gonna be
awesome. We don't just take out one
plane, we take out the whole airport, the whole
fucking airport!" He laughed.
  "Why, Henri?" Lake protested, ignoring
Ysidro for the moment.
  "Why are you doing this? You've already got half the
federal government on your tail. You're already the
most-wanted man in fifteen countries--"
  "Shut up, Drip, you asshole," Ysidro
hissed to drown out Lake's voice. Harold
Lake shot an angry glance at Ysidro--he
hated the nickname "Drip," but everyone there used it
in fear and deference of Ysidro. "The man gave us
our orders, and now we march. You just need to bring us the
money, mule."
  "Three airports within thirty days, all
attacked by heavy cargo planes or commercial
airliners filled with explosives," Gregory
Townsend, the British-born chief of plans and
operations, mused.
  Townsend was a former British S.a.s commando,
an expert in planning and setting up all sorts of
military operations all around the world. He had lost
an eye in a hostage-rescue situation in
Belfast several years earlier, and after fifteen
illustrious years with the British Army,
had been sent packing with only a modest monthly
stipend.
  When Cazaux invited him to join his organization,
he readily agreed.
  "Considering a one- or two-million-dollar
deposit per plane, plus a million for fuel,
plus a million or two for explosives--
we're talking eight to nine million dollars for this
operation, Henri, ten million tops. As I
recall, we had a balance of eleven million in
the war chest.
  This'll tap us out. What sort of deal did you
make with the client?
  I'd say at least ten million per target
struck would be reasonable."
  "No client," Cazaux said. "No fee. This
I do for myself." Many of the officers around him averted
their eyes, disappointed in Cazaux's decision but
fearful of showing any hesitation or protest.
  Lake looked stunned, and showed it; Ysidro
looked immensely pleased.
  "So, Drip, you might as well close the bank
accounts and convert the whole enchilada
into greenbacks," Ysidro said. Townsend nodded his
agreement. "We expect the cash in three
days. Tawney, I want to review the aircraft
list with you by tomorrow afternoon.
  We'll have to rig up a trainer system, get
charts of the targets, recruit some more flyboys,
all that shit. There may be a way to get our hands
on some military hardware--imagine using a couple
Harpoon missiles or laser-guided bombs on
O'Hare or LAX!"
  Ysidro took another swig, chuckling at
Cazaux's stern expression, noting with relief that
Cazaux's anger seemed to be all directed at
Lake. Ysidro was a good friend of Henri
Cazaux's--at least, if Cazaux had a friend, it
was Tomas Ysidro--but he still didn't want to show
any weakness to his boss or to the other officers,
ever. If Cazaux ever failed to make it back from
one of his missions, Ysidro and Townsend would
battle for control of the organization and its assets,
and he had to appear strong at all times. Townsend
was smart and tough, but all those years as a Brit
officer gave him an air of superiority that made
everyone distrust him.
  "Relax, Henri, everything's gonna be fine,"
Ysidro said to Cazaux.
  "We got enough in reserve to get started
on the explosives payloads for the first couple
missions. Butcher and Faker can pick over that
Seneschet warehouse in Massachusetts and see
what they got, but it'll be no sweat--I think we
can pick up about seven or eight thousand kilos of
ammonium nitrate from the waste-storage area, and
we got about a thousand kilos of TNT in storage
for the primer loads. The fuzing will be toughen-we may
have to go out on the market for the first few. I got a
contact in a National Guard armory in North
Carolina where we might get some fuzes."
  "I have information on some military ordnance,"
Townsend said.
  "Several Air National Guard units
recently returned from a European deployment, and
much of their ordnance is in warehouses right over at
Stewart International awaiting transportation to their
home units.
  Their inventory counts never come out right after a big
deployment. We can get gravity bombs,
incendiaries, night-vision gear, the works.
  Drip, I'll need some cash for earnest money."
  "The name isn't "Drip," you asshole, and
there's no fucking cash," Lake finally snapped.
All of the other officers turned to him in
horror--all but Henri Cazaux, who had been
looking in Lake's direction for most of the meeting.
  Ysidro cursed. "What the fuck are you talking
about? We got eleven million fucking dollars in
the bank, Drip. The last meeting before the Chico
mission was only eight days ago, and before that we had
twenty million."
  "That was before Korhonen flew that transport
plane into San Francisco International and
killed several hundred people," Lake retorted
angrily. "That was before three-quarters of the air
traffic to the west coast was shut down. That was before every
investor in Europe told me to fuck off
backwards."
  "You telling us you blew eleven million
dollars in the stock market just since yesterday .. .
?"
  "I'm telling you that I lost one hundred
million dollars yesterday, including this
organization's eleven million, because you"--Lake
jabbed a finger at Cazaux, who was still staring at him
--"decided to go on a joyride and blow up
S.f.o. I lost everything I have, damn you,
everything! I'm broke! I'm worse than broke.
I'm ruined .. ."
  Ysidro was on him like a panther, and before Lake
could blink, Ysidro had him pressed up against the
wall, a knife point pressed into his throat.
The other staff officers had surrounded the two
to watch the execution. "I think," Ysidro said, his
face pressed right up against Lake's so he could
feel his last breath as it gushed from his lungs, "we
are about to need a new logistics officer."
  "No," Cazaux said evenly. "Let him
speak."
  "This fucker's ripping us off, man."
  "Let him speak, was Cazaux ordered.
  His voice did not change, but the force behind
Cazaux's order seemed to everyone several
magnitudes higher than the first. Ysidro glared
at Lake, then held his head steady, gave him a
cut on his neck about two inches long, licked the
rivulet of blood, then spit it back in
Lake's face. "Fucking bean-counter," he
growled. "Unfortunately, you live for now." The
air in the room seemed to relax as Ysidro
backed away.
  Lake was shaking like a man possessed, but more from
anger than fear.
  He wiped blood from his eyes, put a
handkerchief to the cut on his neck, and said, "I've
been laundering money for this organization for three
years, finding legitimate investments and creating
legitimate business fronts, and I've done a
very good job, was Lake said.
  "I've done a good job because I have been steering
each mission, preparing the businesses beforehand."
  "You haven't done shit, Drip," Ysidro
said. "We hardly see you, and all you give us is
jew banker's mumbojumbo."
  "You think you can just walk into a bank with your
terrorist checkbook and write a check for three
or four million dollars?" Lake asked
angrily. To Townsend he continued, "You think you can
take seven million pounds sterling that you just got from
an IRA bomber, convert it to dollars, and drop it
in the automated teller machine at the corner
bank, Townsend? The money has to look clean, and
that takes work. The money has to be legitimately
traceable down three dozen levels in the United
States alone, and a dozen layers down in twenty
other countries, all at the same time. Plus, you
want me to research the financial on your targets,
your clients, their governments, and their relations and
principals all the way to the highest
levels. I do that, each and every time, so when you make
the deal or make the hit, we know exactly what
all the players are going to do or say all over the
world.
  "I can get you what you want and keep the cash in
this organization flowing, but only if I call the
shots," Lake went on.
  "I was fully exposed when that LET hit the
terminal, Henri, fully exposed. I lost
everything! Now this damned psycho pulls a knife
on me and tries to pin the blame on me. Well,
go ahead and fucking kill me, Henri, because if you
don't do it, some japanese or South African
investor's hit squad is going to do it."
  "He wants to die so bad, Henri, I will be
glad to oblige him."
  Ysidro laughed, brandishing the knife again. "No
bean-counter is going to tell me what to do."
  "You broke faith with this organization, Harold,"
Cazaux said in a low voice. "The Army
doesn't wait for clearance from a banker before beginning
operations. You knew that. Your duty was to keep the
funds safe and secure, not engage in wild
investment deals."
  "Henri, you can't keep eleven
million dollars in cash in a shoe box under the
bed," Lake said. "You're running an international
organization, and you can't efficiently run it with
cash. You wanted real estate, business assets,
licenses, government contracts, visas, letters of
introduction, legitimate tax returns--you can't
use bloody cash to pay for legitimate stuff.
You can launder a little bit of the stuff offshore in
bank accounts, but sure as shit, the FBI or
Treasury will eventually track it down, close
down your U.s. operations and probably your
overseas accounts. If you want legitimacy in the
United States you have to dive deeper, get more
creative, do more mainstream stuff. And you can't do the
same routine two years in a row, or even two
months in a row, because the government tracks that stuff
quarterly."
  "I am tired of this sheep's bleating,
Captain," Ysidro said.
  He reached out with the speed of a cobra and grasped
Lake around the neck, digging his fingers deep into the
financier's flesh. "Allow me to put an end
to it."
  "Let him go, Tomas," Cazaux ordered.
He pulled out his .45
  caliber automatic. "If he is to die, I
will do it." The sight of the gun pleased Ysidro, who
released Lake and stepped back to watch.
  "Speak, Harold," Cazaux said. "Say your
last words quickly. Tell me why you should not be
executed for what you have done."
  At first Lake couldn't breathe, which made him
panic even more, but the sight of the big pistol
squeezed the air out of his lungs.
  "I got one thing to say, Henri, and if you
don't like it, you might as well blow my head off,
because my career on the Street is dead anyway.
  I've got an eighteen-million-dollar loan
coming to me later today," Lake said--not pleading, not
whimpering, just stating a fact.
  "I can turn that into fifty million dollars if
you follow my--"
  "You got our money?" Ysidro asked, grabbing
Lake by the lapels instead of the neck this time. "You
better hand it over, beancounter.
  "Henri, you want to start a series of operations
against U.s. airports, repeating the attack on
San Francisco International," Lake said,
ignoring Ysidro and looking at Cazaux's fiery
eyes. "That's fine with me. All I'm
asking is that you let me pick your targets for you."
  "You're fuckin" crazy, bean-counter!"
  "No, I'm not. Listen to me, Henri. I lost
over one hundred million dollars when you
attacked S.f.o last night. But someone made
money on that attack, Henri, big money. They
make money because they predict in what direction a
group of stocks will go."
  "This is bullshit, Henri," Ysidro said
angrily--he had lost track of this conversation long
ago. Money, women, and action were the only
activities Tomas Ysidro really understood--
everything else was bullshit. "He's talkin' buying
and selling fucking stocks with our money. Off this
sonofabitch, man."
  "It's not bullshit," Lake said. "I've got
it all set up.
  Attack U.s. airports if you want to--
just attack the ones that I tell you to do, or give
me a few days' notice before you begin an operation
against an airport. Give me time to get my
contracts lined up. I guarantee you, Henri,
we'll make millions every time we do an operation.
Best of all it's one hundred percent
legitimate. One hundred percent!"
  Cazaux looked as if he wasn't listening, and
Lake closed his eyes, not wanting to see the
muzzle flash of the big .45--2 instead he heard
Cazaux say, "Speak, Harold."
  Lake opened his eyes. The .45 was lowered.
Cazaux was staring at him, but Lake knew he now
had his attention. It was now or never, Harold .
  ..
  "Listen, Henri, here's how it works. We do a
put-option contract.
  his
  "What the hell are you talkin' about, man?"
  "listen, dammit," Lake said. "I'm talking
about fast money, one hundred percent legitimate.
I'm talking about turning a few thousand dollars
into hundreds of thousands or even millions.
  "Let's suppose you own one hundred shares of
stock that you bought at seven dollars a share, but now
it's selling on the market at ten dollars a
share," Lake began. "You're not going to sell your
stock unless it drops below eight dollars a share
because you bought it at seven and you'd start losing money--
was
  "What is this shit, Henri ..
  .
  ?"
  "I want your stock, but I don't have the money
to pay for it," Lake went on hurriedly. "I
think your stock is going to go down to five dollars a
share soon, but if I wait until then, you'll
sell your shares to someone else at or above seven.
And besides, I still don't have the money to buy your shares
even at five dollars a share. But I'm still not out
of the game, because I'm willing to pay you cash for an
option to buy your stock. Follow me so far?"
Cazaux nodded, but Lake knew he was getting
only a few more seconds, and only because he had
been a loyal lieutenant of Cazaux's for so
long.
  "We agree to do the deal. I pay you fifty
dollars earnest money, and we write a contract that
says that if the stock goes down below eight dollars
a share within the next two months, I have the option of
buying your shares at any time within that two months.
If the stock stays at or above eight at the end of
sixty days, the contract expires and nothing
happens, and you keep the fifty--"
  "I thought you said you didn't have the money to buy the
stock," Townsend interjected. Of the senior staff,
Townsend was by far the most intelligent and
worldly of them all--Lake knew he had to not only
convince Cazaux that he was honest and sincere, but he
had to explain everything carefully to Townsend or it
would not work.
  "I'm not buying your stock, Tawney," Lake
replied. "I'm buying an option to buy your stock.
If the terms of the contract are not met, I don't
have the option. If they are, I can choose whether or
not to buy. If I buy, I've got to have the cash.
But the contract I hold has value--I can sell
it to someone who wants the stock, for cash. I'm not
trying to own the stock--all I want is cash."
  Lake had totally lost Ysidro by this time. Most
of the others were watching Cazaux. The arms dealer was
carefully paying attention, and Lake believed he
understood what was happening and where Lake was leading
him. Townsend was starting to get confused. "But how can
you get the bloody cash," he asked irritably,
"and why do you have to pay someone to buy their stock?"
  "I'm paying them to pledge their stock, to put it
aside until the contract has either been executed
or it expires," Lake explained.
  "Your stock is at ten. I think your stock is
going to go to five, and I'm willing to pay you cash
to promise to sell it to me and no one else
if it goes below eight. You basically think I'm
nuts, but you want my cash, so you agree to the deal,
take the cash, sign the contract, and put your stock
in escrow. The cash I pay you is yours no matter
what happens." Townsend nodded that he understood.
Ysidro took another swig of bourbon, belched,
and a few other staff officers fidgeted uneasily,
intrigued but bored and anxious to get this over with.
  "But how in bloody hell will you know if a stock
that you've written this contract for will go down like that--"
And then Townsend stopped--and Lake knew then that the
English terrorist was on board.
  "So you're suggesting .. ."
  "We target our attacks in order to drive the
price of the stock in the direction we want,"
Lake explained, a broad smile on his face
now. "We want United Airlines stock to go
down, so we hit a United terminal or repair
facility. The price of the stock hits rock
bottom, and we clean up.
  "We can play this game the other way, too,"
jake went on. "If airlines go down, other
airline-related companies like airplane
manufacturers and petroleum companies also go
down, and oil prices and other
transportation stocks, like auto manufacturers,
go way up.
  We write a contract to buy auto or
railroad stocks at a certain price, or
write a commodities option contract to do the same
with oil, or gold, or aluminum. When the stock
or the commodity zooms past the strike price, we
execute."
  "So what about the federal authorities?"
Townsend asked, a trace of old English
civility creeping into his voice now that he better
understood Lake's plan. "If we start making
money like you suggest, won't the federal regulatory
agencies become curious?"
  "Yes," Lake admitted, after gauging
Cazaux's expression. More than information, Lake
felt, Cazaux was looking for honesty, and if
Lake ever had to be one hundred and ten percent
up-front, it was now.
  "I don't think you can do this for very long--eventually
someone will question all these coincidences .. ." His
voice regained a lot of the confidence and steel that he
had lost since the incident at S.f.o.
  "But I think we can plan Henri's three
strikes against carefully selected
targets, take the proceeds, close up shop, and
get away clean before the Securities and
Exchange Commission alerts the Treasury
Department and the FBI."
  "Now you've got three American federal
agencies chasing us.. .
  ?"
  "These options trades are done tens of thousands of
times a day," Lake explained. "Hundreds of
millions of dollars in options are traded every
business day. The federal agencies have rules and
enforcement officers examining these trades, but it works
slowly, and they look for the big fish. Besides, we're
not stealing the money-we're just diverting it, spreading it
around, with most of it spread in our direction. Lots
of other traders will be making money, and the guy who just
lost money one day will make it all back, plus a
little extra, the next day or the next week. This
sounds like big bucks, gents, but it's small
potatoes--most big-time traders need to make ten
million a day just to keep their spurs.
  "We'll be outgunned by the really big traders,
the super-big investors and brokers and even some
governments. That's the time we take our profits and
step back. We'll be lost in the confusion
--a perfect opportunity to escape. The feds will
go after the elephants, and they'll let the ants
scoop up the crumbs and shoo--except our
"crumbs" will be counted in the millions, maybe
even the tens of millions of dollars."
  "Henri, this bastard is givin' us a snowjob,"
Ysidro said, totally lost and completely
exasperated by Lake's attempted explanation.
  "We gotta get the money this asshole stole from
us back, that's the fuckin' bottom line."
  Cazaux looked at Ysidro, then Townsend,
then at Lake, nodded solemnly, and said in
response, "Harold, your plan of action has
merit, but it still does not erase what you have done--
risk this entire army's very existence by compromising our
financial resources. It is nothing short of
treason and conspiracy. However, because of your long
years of service to us and because I feel your plan should
be considered by the general staff, you will not be tried of
treason and conspiracy for a period of twelve
hours.
  "In that twelve hours, while under
"round-the-clock arrest, you are to turn all funds
belonging to this organization over to me."
  "No problem," Lake said. "I can have
the eleven million dollars in your offshore accounts
in three--"
  "In cash," Ysidro said, "not any of this
Jew-banker contract-note "In cash,"
Cazaux agreed.
  Lake swallowed hard, the back of his mind racing
trying to determine the best way to transport a
truckful of money to the Owl's Nest from a friendly
bank. He quickly determined that it was not possible.
  "Henri, it can't be done in twelve hours,"
Lake said.
  "One or two million, yes, but not eleven.
The fastest way to get the money is from the Federal
Reserve Bank in New York or Boston, but
we don't want to stir up that hornet's nest, which
means we try going to the commercial and private
banks, which will take time. Not many banks carry that
kind of cash on hand, which means we'd have to go to several
banks, which greatly increases the likelihood of--"
  "Then you will die, Harold," Cazaux said,
raising the big .45 again.
  "Wait!" Lake shouted. "I can get four ..
. no, five million with just a phone call.
I've dealt with the Win Millions Casino in
Atlantic City for emergency cash deals
in the past--they can divert five million to me in just
a few hours, before the gaming commission inspectors
count their receipts tomorrow morning. They'll charge
twenty percent--"
  "Which you will pay out of your own funds," Cazaux
said.
  "Of course, of course," Lake agreed.
Twenty-percent interest for a one-week loan worked out
to an astronomical one million percent compounded
annual interest rate, but it was his only hope right
now.
  "But Henri, the other six million should stay in
the various offshore accounts. We can't write those
option contracts with cash."
  The gun was still trained on him, distrust showing in every
man's face around Lake. "Henri, you've got
to trust me on this one. I've got a loan
commitment for eighteen million dollars in my hands.
I pay Fraga at the Win Millions Casino
six million, I need four million for my other
creditors, that leaves you with the rest of the--"
  "You will pay us fifteen million dollars,"
Cazaux said. "Five million now, in cash, and
ten million credited to our offshore numbered
accounts. You will keep the rest."
  "But .. . but I can't do that," Lake protested.
"I've got to cover thirty different trust and
escrow accounts. The four million is just enough to hold
off any legal action for--"
  "You will agree to these terms or die," Cazaux
said. "That is your only concern right now."
  "Henri, I can't step on the floor of any
exchange or even talk to a broker unless I--"
Cazaux pulled the hammer back on the .45.
  The sound of the hammer locking into place was as loud
as a church bell in Lake's ears. "All right,
all right!" Lake shouted. "Fifteen million for
you. I agree. Five million now, ten in your
accounts."
  He paused, looking to Cazaux and Townsend,
afraid to look at Ysidro, and added, "To be
used for Operation Storming Heaven, yes?"
  "What the hell is Operation Storming Heaven?"
Townsend asked.
  "It's an appropriate name for this project,"
Lake said. "Comes from a quote by the Roman
tribune Quintus Horatius Floccus:
"Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals; they
storm heaven in their folly."
  Quite good, don't you think?"
  Ysidro looked disgusted and angry enough to chew
nails, but Cazaux nodded his approval. It was
one of those touches that Lake knew that Cazaux
appreciated--having a title for any operation he
was about to undertake was important to him. Cazaux
decocked the pistol and stuck it back in his belt.
Lake had to look behind him to see what would have gotten
ruined had he pulled the trigger. A
nineteenth-century oil painting of Abraham
Lincoln, once appraised at over a hundred
thousand dollars, would have needed extensive cleaning and
repairs to remove Lake's brains and bone
fragments if his explanation of Operation Storming
Heaven did not convince Henri Cazaux.
  Cazaux put the question to a vote of the members of his
general staff--merely a formality, because almost no one
ever voted against Henri Cazaux. Tomas
Ysidro was the only one to vote against the plan,
asking again that Lake be executed for what he'd done
with the organization's funds. "I'll be on you like
stink on shit, Drip," Ysidro told Lake as
the staff members were given their instructions to begin
planning the three attacks. "You get out of line
once, just once, and I'll blow your fuckin" ass
off. Cazaux will bitch, and he might even
throw me out on the street, but you'll still be dead like you
fuckin' deserve." Ysidro then pulled up a
chair and sat right beside Lake, staring at him and taking
in every last word as Lake pulled out his cellular
telephone and Apple Newton P.d.a and
made the first calls and satellite E-mail
messages, first to his office to verify the receipt
of the loan money, then to Leonardo Fraga, the
vice president and general manager of the Win
Millions Hotel and Casino in Atlantic
City.
  Under Ysidro's murderous stare, it was hard
to keep his fingers from shaking as he began the first few
steps of Operation Storming Heaven.
  Beale Air Force Base, Yuba City,
California Two Days Later "The board has
reached an initial evaluation," Colonel
Emerson Starr began.
  He was the operations group commander from Mcclellan
Air Force Base appointed as the chief of the
accident investigation board dealing with the crash of the
F-16 at Mcclellan two days earlier. "The
scope of the accident investigation has been greatly
reduced because of the involvement of the FBI, Marshals
Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms--in essence, this board
can't come up with a ruling on the cause of the crash because
we haven't been granted access to the data now in
the hands of the FBI. We know there was an explosion,
and we know the F-16 was in close proximity to the
explosion, but we don't know anything about the
explosion itself.
  Therefore we can't absolutely conclude that the
explosion caused the damage on the F-16.
However, based on radio transmissions, ground
observers, and a cursory examination of the wreckage,
the board determines that the probable cause of the
accident was due to the F's uncontrolled
collision with the ground following sustaining engine and
hydraulic damage due to proximity of a large
ground explosion at Mather Jetport."
  Starr shifted uncomfortably in his seat and
continued. "The preliminary report of this accident
board in the matter of the death of the pilot Major
Linda McKenzie is incomplete; however, we
are prepared to issue the following statement to Air
Combat Command, the chief of staff of the Air Force,
and the adjutant general of the state of California: the
death of Major McKenzie was due to violation of
Air Combat Command regulation 55-16,
"F-16 Aircrew Procedures," paragraph
5-53, and Technical Order if-1ca-1,
section three, paragraph--"
  "That's bullshit!" Colonel Also Vincenti
snapped, jumping to his feet. "Don't pull this
crap, Colonel. This was not a pilot error
accident, damn you."
  "Sit down, Colonel Vincenti," Starr said
firmly.
  "I want to address the board, sir."
  "The board has already heard your testimony,
Colonel," Starr replied.
  "Sit down or I'll have you removed."
  "You can try, Starr."
  Colonel Gaspar was now on his feet in front
of Vincenti.
  "Better sit down, Rattler," he said.
"You're skating on real thin ice."
  "I assure you, Colonel, I have full
authority to hold you in contempt if you don't shut
up, was Starr said. "Now, are you going to be quiet
and let me finish, or will I have to ask you to leave?"
  Vincenti riveted Starr with his angry stare.
  "Colonel Gaspar, can you please escort
Colonel Vincenti outside?"
  "He'll be fine, Colonel," Gaspar said,
pulling Vincenti back into his seat.
  "Thank you, sir," Starr said. "As I was
saying, Major McKenzie violated several
aircrew regulations that specifically directed her
to eject if she was below two thousand feet above ground
level in case of hydraulic failure,
catastrophic engine failure,
uncontrollability, low airspeed, inability
to maintain altitude, unsafe gear indications,
flight control transients or failure,
inability to fly an approach pattern,
electrical failure, center of gravity problems
--the list goes on.
  By every account, and by the testimony of her fellow
pilots and technical representatives of the
aircraft manufacturer, Major McKenzie
should have ejected much sooner and should not have attempted a
landing.
  "However, the board doubts whether Major
McKenzie had full knowledge of exactly what was wrong
with her aircraft, since it was dark and she had
minimal cockpit indications," Starr continued.
  "Colonel Vincenti on her wing also could not know
the exact condition of her aircraft. The
board concludes that it was reasonable for Major
McKenzie to attempt a flameout landing with the
indications she had.
  Considering the densely populated areas where the
unmanned F-16
  would have landed had she ejected, the board also finds
that Major McKenzie's and Colonel
Vincenti's actions in bringing the damaged aircraft
to Mcclellan Air Force Base saved dozens and
perhaps hundreds of lives.
  "The board is therefore concluding that the actions of
Major McKenzie and Colonel Vincenti were in
keeping with the directives and tenets of the United
States Air Force regarding safe operation over
populated areas, and we conclude that Major Linda
McKenzie did indeed risk and eventually
sacrifice her own life to save others; although she
would have been following prescribed directives
by ejecting, and she is indeed guilty of not following
those regulations which would have saved her life, failing
to do so saved many other lives and much property
damage, and Major McKenzie should be commended for
her actions."
  Colonel Starr then looked over at Vincenti,
affixing him with his own angry glare, and
added, "The board further finds that damage sustained
to Colonel Vincenti's F-16 could have caused the
malfunctions in the radios and videotape gun
camera being questioned by the Air Combat Command flight
evaluation board. Of course, these conclusions are
preliminary, since we do not have access to information about
the explosion, but it is reasonable for this board
to conclude that Colonel Vincenti's aircraft
sustained much the same damage as Major
McKenzie's plane, and the malfunctions that
Colonel Vincenti said were the cause of him
disregarding instructions to land could have existed. Given that
Colonel Vincenti's last acknowledged instructions
were to pursue the suspect aircraft, in our
opinion his actions were consistent with his orders as he
could have known them at the time. These preliminary findings
will be passed along to the flight evaluation board
convened to examine Colonel Vincenti's actions
subsequent to the crash at Mcclellan.
  "I remind everyone present that the findings of this
board are classified confidential, and you are
instructed not to reveal any of them or discuss this
matter with the press, which I understand is waiting
outside. If you are questioned by the press, refer them
to Air Force Public Affairs.
Until such time as this board is allowed access
to data about the explosion at Mather, this board stands
in recess."
  Everyone in the room rose and departed--everyone
except Vincenti and Gaspar, who returned to their
seats after the board members had depar just been beat
up. "Your mouth is going to get you in big trouble one
of these days, my friend," Gaspar said to his
second-in-command.
  "You need to make friends with guys like Starr, not shout
him down."
  "I thought he was going to continue the press's and the
government's feeding frenzy and trash Linda, like
they've been trashing me and the unit," Vincenti said.
"I'm getting tired of this shit, Chuck. I feel
so fucking isolated, like it's our fault about San
Francisco."
  "Since when do you care what anyone else thinks,
Rattler?"
  "Since I see and hear this stuff ten times a day
in the papers, on the radio and TV," Vincenti
said. "Everywhere I go, I hear the same thing: I'm
the guy that missed Cazaux, I'm the guy who let
Cazaux go, I'm the one that screwed up. I'm
starting to believe all this shit."
  "It's all going to continue, Colonel," a
voice behind them said.
  They turned and found Admiral Ian
Hardcastle standing in the center aisle listening to them,
with his aide guarding the door to the room to keep
anyone else out. "The government needs a fall
guy, and you're it.
  McKenzie's name will be cleared--yours won't.
In fact, with Major McKenzie's name cleared,
you'll appear doubly at fault."
  "You know what I think, Hardcastle? I think
you're whipping the press up with all this talk of
beefing up air defense," Vincenti said
angrily, getting to his feet to confront the
retired officer.
  "I've seen disasters like this die away after a day
or two, but you're not letting this one die away.
Where the hell do you get off?"
  "Cazaux will strike again, Colonel,"
Hardcastle said. "I'm convinced of it."
  "So now you're fuckin" Karnac the
Magnificent, huh?" Vincenti retorted.
"What you're doing here is screwing with people's lives
and careers just for your own political bullshit
plans."
  "That was true two days ago when we showed up
here, Colonel," Hardcastle said.
  "That's why Vice President Martindale and the
rest of them are here."
  "But you're not?" Gaspar asked.
  "Not since I talked to you the first time,"
Hardcastle replied.
  "Not after getting the FBI briefing on
Cazaux. He's deadly and very dangerous. Yes,
I believe he'll strike again. But the government
is trying to calm people down by telling them that Cazaux
is too crazy to organize another attack, that it
was a fluke, that the manhunt will track him down before
he can strike again. The FBI'S own profile on
him says otherwise. The government is also saying that
Air National Guard units will be restrained in their
overland operations and that no other military
precautions are necessary--there's even talk of doing
away with all continental air defense units
completely. We're giving Cazaux the perfect
opportunity to strike."
  "With all due respect, Admiral, you don't
know shit," Gaspar said.
  "You're just guessing."
  "And all your guesses just happen
to follow the party line--your party's line," Vincenti
added. "You're just as bad as Wilkes and the rest of the
Justice Department that are jumping in my shit."
  "I'm trying to keep the government from completely
dismantling the home-defense infrastructure of this
country," Hardcastle said. "That's the truth, and
that's from the heart. You're a career air defense
pilot--you can tell if I'm bullshitting you or
not. Now, you can just sit back and let the justice
Department and the Air Force cut your nuts off and
trash your career, or you can cooperate with me and my
investigation. If my agenda helps Vice
President Martindale and the Project 2000
Task Force, that's fine, I believe in his
candidacy and what the Task Force is trying
to achieve. You don't have to. But I'm running my
show the way I want. I'm not a mouthpiece for
anyone."
  "No, but you want me to be your puppet, right?"
Vincenti asked.
  "You want to use me as the poor downtrodden sob
story while you lambaste the White House and
anyone else who gets in your way."
  "I want you to teach me what you know, Also,"
Hardcastle said.
  "You know air defense--I've been out of it for
too long. Yeah, I've got a political
agenda, but I've also got specific ideas
to help the system we have right now, no matter who is
in the White House.
  I need your help to finalize my ideas. In
return I can help put you back on flying
status, keep your career intact, and help your
unit recover from the white washing job you're undergoing
right now. I'm not saying you and your unit and maybe the
entire air defense community will be toast if you
don't help me, but you can read the handwriting on the
wall just as good as I can."
  Vincenti and Gaspar remained silent,
defiantly staring at Hardcastle as if trying
to recognize any hint of his hidden agenda.
  Hardcastle let them stare for a moment, then he
turned to his aide standing by the door and said, "Marc,
show the Colonel here who's waiting to speak to him."
  Colonel Marc Sheehan, Hardcastle's
aide, unlocked and opened the door behind him, and
immediately a throng of reporters tried to muscle their
way inside, shouting questions. A few point-and shoot
cameras were poked through the door, rapid-firing at
random for pictures.
  "I'm not talking to the press," Vincenti said.
"No comment."
  Hardcastle motioned to Sheehan, who
not-too-politely pushed back the reporters and
closed and locked the door again. "Sure, you keep
on with your no-comment routine, Colonel--without my
help this time," Hardcastle said. "You think you look
bad on TV now--by tm night's evening news,
you'll be called either Cazaux's accomplice or the
biggest American military screw-up since
George Custer."
  "I can take care of myself."
  "I'm not talking about you, Colonel--I'm
talking about your career, your future, your
retirement, the continued existence of your unit, and
everything regarding air defense you've ever believed
in.
  You can't fight the Fourth Estate yourself."
  "So now you're blackmailing me, right?"
Vincenti asked. "I either help you or swim with the
sharks myself."
  "I've got work to do, Colonel," Hardcastle
said simply.
  "You're a big boy, an officer and a
gentleman. You think you can fight your own
battles, go ahead and fight. I'll be fighting
too--I just wanted to be fighting together with you, not
separately. But I can do it separately. You think
you can?"
  Vincenti and Gaspar were silent once again.
Hardcastle had had enough.
  He turned and headed for the door. "Have a nice
life, Colonel," he said. "I'll lead these
bozos away from the front door--slip out in a
minute or two. But one last word of advice--try
not to make it look like you're running from them.
Believe me, you can't."
  Hardcastle had just reached the door and was about to open
it when he heard, "All right, all right. I'll
help you."
  The retired Coast Guard and Border
Security Force officer turned and nodded at
Vincenti and Gaspar. "Hangar Bravo, briefing
room, six A.m. tomorrow," Hardcastle said.
"Bring the original gun camera tapes."
  "There are no original tapes. I told you,
I told the board--the recorder was damaged."
  "Colonel, save that rap for the flight evaluation
board," Hardcastle said. "I need your honest
inputs. Believe me, no FEB will see
or hear those tapes--they belong to the U.s.
Senate as of right now, and no one in the military below
the Secretary of Defense has the authority
to demand them."
  "I've got to get permission to be excused from the
FEB and released from quarters."
  "It's been done. You're a special expert
consultant and witness in a Senate investigation--your
flight evaluation board and your court-martial have
been suspended indefinitely."
  "What court-martial? What in hell are you
talking about?"
  "Oh, that's right, you probably didn't know,"
Hardcastle said, a wickedly satisfied smile
on his face. "Tell him, Marc."
  "Air Combat Command was directed by the
Secretary of Defense and the President to convene a
court-martial," Sheehan said.
  "Dereliction of duty, actions unbecoming an
officer, disobeying a direct and lawful order.
Regardless of the outcome of the flight evaluation
board, you were going to be summarily court-martialed,
sentenced to four years restricted duty--probably
as a warehouse officer in Greenland--reduction in
grade to captain, then given a less-than
honorable discharge, maybe even a dishonorable
discharge.
  We've seen the paperwork--it's been signed and
approved."
  "And you were going to just walk out of here and let this
happen?"
  Vincenti moaned, his eyes wide in utter
disbelief. "You were going to let me get busted if
I didn't cooperate with you?"
  "You seem to think this is a game we're playing
here, Colonel Vincent i," Hardcastle shot
back. "You seem to think you can beat your chest and
take everybody on. Let me assure you, it's not
a game.
  I am deadly serious when I say that Henri
Cazaux is going to strike again; I'm serious when
I say I've got a plan to stop him; and I'm
serious when I say I need your help. Now, I
didn't sign those courtmartial papers--your
fellow blue-suiters did, the ones you dedicated
your life to almost twenty years ago. I stopped it
from happening.
  Who are you going to help now?"
  Vincenti stepped over to Hardcastle--followed
closely by Gaspar, ready to intervene if
he was needed. But instead of venting his frustration and
anger on Hardcastle or Sheehan, Vincenti
held out a hand, and Hardcastle took it. "Before I
forget what you did for me, before I remember you're
a fucking politician now," Vincenti said in a
low voice, "thank you."
  "Thank you for trusting me--and I hope I can
keep your trust," Hardcastle said. "Now, listen
up: you and Colonel Gaspar stand beside me--right beside
me, not in back of me. Don't try to push your
way through the crowd--Marc will do the pushing. Colonel
Gaspar, you give them the no-comment routine--after
all, you're the military and you're not on trial.
Al, you try to answer every question they throw at you--you
won't be able to, but you have to look like you've got
nothing to hide. Turn toward the reporter asking you
questions, make eye contact but ignore the cameras.
Don't react to a question, don't get pissed off.
Think first, then go ahead and answer. Don't listen
to what I'm saying. I'm not your lawyer, and we
can't look like we' re conspiring against telling the
truth . don't worry about what I'be saying--
believe me, we'll be saying the same thing."
  "The judge directed us not to talk to the press."
  "You work for the U.s. Senate now, Also
--and you're fighting for your career, remember that,"
Hardcastle said. "We control the situation now.
Defend your uniform after we get Henri
Cazaux."
  Memphis International Airport Three Days
Later "Memphis Tower, Express-314 with you,
GPS three-six left," the pilot of the
Universal Express Boeing 727 reported.
  "Express-314, good evening, ident," Bill
Gayze, one of the six controllers on duty at
Memphis International Airport's control tower,
responded. By force of habit, he scanned
outside the slanted windows at the direction of the
I.l.s (instrument Landing System) outer marker,
about six miles to the south. He could see a string of
lights in the sky, all flying northward--
airliners' landing lights.
  Between eleven P.m. and one A.m when the big
overnight package company Universal Express
had its incoming flights (universal's huge
package-sorting "superhub" was located at the
north part of Memphis International), it was
normal to have one aircraft landing every sixty to ninety
seconds.
  Gayze checked the tower BRITE
(bright Radar Indicator Tower Equipment)
scope, the short-range three-dimensional radar
mounted high up on the wall where everyone could see it.
An aircraft data block on the top of the
BRITE scope in the control tower of Memphis
International illuminated briefly--the Delta
flight was number seven for landing.
  "314, radar contact, report five miles
out, you're number seven."
  "Express-314, wilco." The Universal
Express flight was using one of the new GPS
instrument approaches, in which aircraft maneuvered
from point to point on an instrument approach by means
of satellite navigation. The satellite
approaches, coupled with differential GPS
signals from a nearby radio station, ensured
incredible precision for arriving flights--using
GPS, an experienced airline captain could make
a perfect landing and could even taxi most of the way
to his gate, without ever seeing the pavement.
  Except for an aircraft emergency like an
unsafe landing gear, going "missed approach" (where
a pilot flies his plane within one or two
hundred feet of the ground but has to abort the landing
because he or she couldn't see the runway) was
almost a thing of the past here in Memphis. The added
safety and reliability of the GPS approaches
meant that the airport managers and the FAA could
safely increase the traffic here at Memphis--every
runway at Memphis, and indeed almost every runway
in the country, now could have its own precision instrument
approach. The concept of "blind flying" and
"nonprecision approaches" had almost been
eliminated, thanks to GPS.
  Gayze's thoughts were interrupted by a call on the
interfacility interphone: "Memphis Tower,
Romeo-17."
  "Memphis Tower."
  "Hi, Bill, Doug on seventeen." Doug
Latimer, at the sector-seventeen console, was a
D-2 controller at Memphis TRACON
(terminal Radar Approach Control), located
one hundred and eighty feet below Gayze's feet
at the base of the tower at Memphis International.
  The D-2 controller assisted the sector radar
controller by making phone calls to other air traffic
control agencies, making radio calls as necessary
to back up the radar controller, and maintaining the
computerized tracking strips on each flight
assigned to the controller.
  "Arrival report visual three-six left for
Universal Express 107, a Shorts 300,
one-five miles to the southwest at eight thousand.
  Can't find his strip. Can you handle him?"
  "Sure," Gayze said. Every aircraft on an
I.f.r flight plan has a "strip," or a
piece of paper used by air traffic controllers
to monitor and log a plane's progress. All
Universal Express flights flew on
I.f.r flight plans--company policy--and
they were carefully tracked from start to finish by both the
company and the FAA. A tracking strip was generated
by a Flight Service Station or an Air Route
Traffic Control Center and electronically
passed from sector to sector as the plane
progressed. Although it was not unheard offora plane
to lose its "strip," it was pretty unusual these
days.
  A plane without a strip was not officially "in the
system" and was handled on a workload-permitting
basis. This guy was lucky--it wasn't too busy
at the moment. Right now there were almost one hundred and
fifty planes of all sizes scattered around
Universal Express's "super hub," loading
up and preparing for departure--it was busy,
but not too bad to handle this one straggler.
  "Tell him he can have runway two-seven if he
wants it," Gayze said.
  Runway two-seven lay across the northern part
of the airport right beside Universal Express's
freight and package delivery complex.
  Normally it was a mad race for Universal's
pilots to get to their cargo gates ahead of the others
--this guy seemed to be taking it easy.
  "Stand by," Latimer said. Gayze could hear the
controller's conversation with the pilot over the phone
line, then: "Okay, Bill, he's taking
vectors to two-seven at six thousand feet, two
thousand inside ten, D.l."
  "Approved, B.g" Gayze responded,
passing the information to the tower controllers handling
arrivals to runway two-seven.
  "How's it looking out there tonight, Doug? Busy?"
  "I think every plane in Texas is heading your
way tonight, Bill," Latimer said.
  "Great," Gayze said wearily. "Ask your
boys to vector the southwest arrivals south of
Tunica, we're starting to bunch up."
  The string of lights aiming at runway three-six
was starting to get longer and more tightly
packed, and the flights were coming in faster.
  Each airplane under instrument flight rules in
the airspace around Memphis International had a
protective "cylinder" at least six miles in
diameter and two thousand feet thick, with the plane in
the center, which could not be violated under any
circumstance. If the pilots could see the runway
or a preceding aircraft and advised the controller
of that, Gayze could tighten the spacing up to about two
miles and five hundred feet, but most pilots
flying at night were too busy scanning their
instruments and running checklists to accept
responsibility for separation. Things were going
smoothly now, but one plane going too fast or
too slow could create a whipsaw effect that could
cause problems very quickly. Better to start extending
the traffic now, rather than wait.
  "You got it, Bill, vector southwest
arrivals south of Tunica, D.l" Latimer
replied. "Talk at you later. "Bye."
  "D.g "bye." Gayze took a sip of
coffee, laced with a little fatfree chocolate milk
this time to boost the caffeine level.
  Things didn't calm down in the tower until after
one A.m nearly four hours away, and it
was looking like a busy night. He needed to stay
sharp.
  "He wants to take me over to runway
two-seven," the young pilot in the right seat of the
Shorts 330-200 cargo plane said. "I said
okay.
  He sounded like he was trying to help me out."
  Henri Cazaux was in the back of the Shorts,
inspecting his deadly cargo, when he heard the call
over his wireless intercom. He raised his
microphone to his lips: "Follow his vectors,
but do not accelerate," Cazaux said. "I'll be up
there in a minute." He then continued his inspection.
  Although boxy and rather odd-looking, the Northern
Ireland built Shorts 330-200 was a popular
short-range turboprop commuterstcargo plane--
i Force, Army, and National Guard as a
short-range utility aircraft.
  Over two hundred had been built for small
airlines or major airline partners, carrying up
to thirty passengers or 7,500 pounds of cargo.
  The twenty-year-old plane no longer flew for the
U.s. military, and was now flown only by a handful
of commuter and cargo services around the world. The
used-airplane market was full of them, and
it was easy and relatively inexpensive to build a
small fleet of them and to train pilots to fly the
small "trash-hauler." Cazaux's bird was a
freighter version of the Model 300-200, called a
C-23But "Sherpa" in the U.s. Air Force,
modified with a rear cargo ramp and integral load
rollers in the floor.
  Tonight, the Shorts was a bomber.
  Cazaux was inspecting three LD3 cargo
containers, standard airline-use baggage, cargo, or
mail containers, each filled with two thousand pounds
of a mixture of waste ammonium nitrate
rocket propellant, stolen from an
industrial-waste storage facility in western
Massachusetts, and TNT. The three containers were
chained together, and the forward container was chained to a
quick-release lever attached to the forward cargo-bay
deck. A fourth pallet in the rear of the plane
carried a six-foot-diameter pilot parachute
and a forty-foot-diameter main cargo parachute,
cabled to the LD3 containers.
  This setup comprised a functional and tested
parachute-extraction system, similar to the kind
used by many tactical transport planes,
including the Shorts 300. At the
appropriate time, the pilot parachute would be
released and inflated in the aircraft's slipstream,
applying tension to the three LD3 containers. Once
over the target, the pilot parachute would be allowed
to release the main parachute, and as soon as the main
'chute fully opened, it would drag the containers out
of the Shorts" cargo bay. Deceleration or
G-sensors were installed in each container to set off
the explosives one second after hitting the target,
which would allow the containers to break through the roof of the
target before detonating.
  Satisfied that all was ready, Cazaux made his
way back up to the cockpit and put on a
headset. "Say again your last, Roberts?"
  "I'm using the Universal call sign you gave
me, Captain," the young pilot responded, "and I
asked for vectors to runway three-six right, as
ordered. Approach Control asked me if I
wanted the Universal runway instead, two-seven
.. ."
  "You should have replied no," Cazaux said. "I
ordered you to approach on three-six."
  "Sir, in my judgment it would have appeared very
suspicious to not accept vectors to two-seven," the
pilot said. "Approach Control said I
would be number two for landing on two-seven, but
number eight on three-six right. The winds are
calm, so all runways are in use tonight. I felt
I had no choice."
  "Get a clearance back to three-six right
immediately, Roberts," Cazaux hissed. "You are not
paid to exercise your judgement, you are paid to fly as you
are directed. Now get a clearance back on
course."
  As Roberts got back on the radio,
Cazaux checked the portable GPS satellite
navigation receiver's moving-map display. They were many
miles off course now, almost beyond the extended
centerline of three-six right. It might be too
late to get two-seven now, and their mission timing was
way off. "You had better check your timing, and do
whatever it takes to get back on course and back
on time," Cazaux warned his young pilot. "I
want no more errors in judgment or you'll be a dead
man."
  A few moments later, the interfacility
interphone came alive again: "Bill, Doug,
Sierra-12. Universal-107 changed his mind
again and now wants three-six right."
  "Bless him," Gayze said
impatiently, being careful (after listening to his
controller tapes many times with a supervisor
present) not to swear. This was not the time for new
pilots to be messing around with multiple requests
and weird clearances. "Send him over to me.
  I'll give him three-six left and try to fit
him in on the right.
  At least I'll get him out of your hair,
B.g."
  "Thanks, Bill, I owe you. Here he comes.
D.l. "Bye."
  A few moments later, the pilot of the
Universal Express Shorts 300 checked in:
"Memphis Tower, Universal Express-107,
with you descending to two thousand, crossing Arkabutla,
requesting vectors I.l.s three-six right."
  "Express-107, radar contact," Bill
Gayze responded, double checking the radar scope.
"Turn left heading zero-four-zero, descend and
maintain the GPS three-six left approach
course, repeat, left. I'll work on a
sidestep to the I.l.s three-six right."
  "Express-107, roger, zero-four-zero on the
heading, leaving six for two."
  The pilot sounded dejected, maybe
even pissed off, but he brought it upon himself. Gayze
didn't recognize the voice, but the pilot must be
a new guy and the old head flying with him must not be
paying attention. Most Universal Express
flights didn't jam themselves into the normal inbound
traffic flow, but overflew or circumnavigated
the Memphis Class B airspace direct
to Holly Springs VOR or the Loosahatchie
NDB, then got their radar vectors to runway
two seven.
  Even with a stiff crosswind, most Universal
pilots took runway two-seven because it cut down
on taxi time, and those guys at Universal had
to account for every gallon of jet fuel.
  Things were going along smoothly for the next few
minutes, but a bottleneck was beginning to develop
--no surprise who was causing it.
  The pilot of Universal 107 was still flying over
two hundred nautical miles per hour
groundspeed and was starting to overtake the slower traffic
in front of him. "Express-107, I need you
at your final approach speed," Gayze radioed.
Airspeed glitches like that would create a ripple
effect for the next three hours, Gayze thought
sourly.
  Express-107 would slow to one-twenty, which meant
that planes behind him would be overtaking him, so Gayze
would have to slow everybody down to had probably just
ruined what could have been a pretty good night, and
Gayze punctuated his instructions with a curt
"Acknowledge to accent his displeasure.
  "107 correcting, slowing to one-two-zero
knots," the pilot replied.
  This guy sure sounded overly green, Gayze
thought, and he wasn't getting too much help from his
captain. Maybe he better put a bug in
Universal's ear about him. Gayze hit a
telephone button marked UNIV DISP on his
communications console, and a moment later he heard:
"Universal Express, dispatcher, Kline."
  "Hey, Rudy--Bill Gayze up in
Memphis Tower."
  "Hey, Bill how's it going' tonight? What's
up? Not with any of our birds, I hope."
  "Minor problem, thought you might want to mention it
to Mike."
  Mike Chaswick was the chief pilot at
Universal Express. He and Gayze were friends and
had visited each other's places of business many
times on orientation tours. "One of your
birds coming up on final approach now.
  No violations, but he's skating on thin ice."
  "Sure, Bill .. . ah, which flight are we
talking about?"
  "One-oh-seven." There was a very long pause,
then: "107, you said?"
  "Yeah," Gayze replied. "A Shorts
330, landing in about two minutes."
  "Our flight 107 landed four hours ago,"
Kline said. "107
  is a daily from Shreveport to Memphis, but it
usually arrives at eleven P.m not two A.m.
Our last inbound is usually down around one-thirty--
we start launching outbounds at three. What kind of
plane you say it was?
  A Shorts?"
  "Yep. Tail number November-564W."
  "I don't recognize that tail number,"
Kline said. "We got three Shorts on the
flight line, Bill, but we don't use them for the
inbound dailies--they're for the short-haul
last-minute outbounds. Used very little. I'm flipping
through the schedule .. . nope, I don't see any
Shorts on the schedule yesterday or today, but that
don't mean too much because they come and go on
short notice. He might be from the maintenance
facility at DFW, but I sure as hell
didn't know about him.
  I'll have to park him on the back forty--all my
other gates are full."
  This was getting weirder by the second, Gayze
thought--and the weird feeling was quickly being replaced by a
feeling of fear.
  "Stand by one." Gayze made a few radio
calls for inbound flights, asked one of the other
controllers a question, then turned back to the phone
line: "We got another inbound Universal flight
coming in on two seven, flight 203 from
Cincinnati, a 727."
  "We have a daily 203 from Cincinnati,
Bill, and it's a 727
  usually, but he landed okay at eleven-fifteen.
Yep, here's the crew's manifest on 107.
Sure he's a Universal flight?"
  "Yep, that's what he says," Gayze
replied, frowning. "I didn't get a strip on
my guy."
  "You got a strip on the 727?"
  "Stand by one." Sure enough, they did not. Well,
he didn't have any more time to work on this
screw-up, and besides call-sign screw-ups were
common and not that important. Both planes would be
on the ground in a few minutes. "Listen, Rudy,
I gotta run, but I'll call you back when I
get a chance and we'll sort this out after he's on the
deck.
  I'll have Security escort them in. Talk
to you later." Well, whatever call sign he had
didn't really matter, Gayze thought as he punched
off the phone button and returned to the radios.
  "Tower, com107, seven miles out, request
sidestep for I.l.s three-six right."
  "107, stand by." Gayze canted the strip
holder for Universal Express 107, which would
remind him that he had something to check on with him, then
checked the arrivals counter, which held all the strips
for arrivals and departures on the three runways.
All counters were absolutely full. The traffic
from the east was starting to pile up, so a sidestep
maneuver--in which a pilot flies an instrument
approach to one runway, then must be prepared
to immediately transition to another such as Memphis--
was probably not going to be an option. "Unable
at this time, com107. Continue on the GPS
three-six left, you're number seven,
report the outer marker. And give the tower a call
on a landline after you land." So it would take the new
guy ten extra minutes to taxi to his cargo gate
--an extra fifty gallons of jet fuel, about
a hundred bucks. Knowing the Scottish tightwad
that owned Universal Express, he was probably
going to make the poor pilot pay it back.
  "Break. United Express-231, right on
intersection golf-golf without delay, ground point
seven when clear." Gayze made a mental note
to keep an eye on the Universal Express
flight until they made it to their terminal--being new
on the job, pissed off at the world, andwitha
not-so-dynamic captain, on a busy night, this had
all the ingredients for trouble.
  "You are going to be thirty seconds late,
Roberts!" Cazaux shouted.
  Ken Roberts was one of Cazaux's best
pilots, and had been with Cazaux almost as long as
Taddele Korhonen had been, but he was much younger and
far less experienced. He had been with Cazaux for
about a year, and was one of his most capable and
experienced pilots, bush missions, hauling drugs
or weapons or troops to some dirt strip somewhere and
back out. He had never done an aerial
assault like this before.
  Further, Roberts was an American, one of the
few Americans on Cazaux's payroll. There
had never been any doubt about his loyalty or
commitment to following orders--until now. "Push your
power up and get back on force timing now!"
  "But Captain, I was told by the tower to--"
  "The tower is not in command of this flight, I am!"
Cazaux snapped. The kid was a nervous wreck--
Cazaux had to take the plane back. He slid
back into the pilot's seat, strapped in, took the
controls, and slid the throttles up to 85 percent
power. "Get back there and stand by on the fucking
release mechanism," Cazaux told Roberts.
"And be prepared to release the payloads manually
if the automatic system fails. Go!" The kid
did as he was told, leaping out of his seat.
  The terrorist switched radio channels to a
discrete, scrambled U.h.f frequency, and
keyed the mike: "Number Two, say status?"
  "In the green and ready, lead," Gennady
Mikheyev, one of Cazaux's newest and most
promising pilots, responded. Mikheyev, a
former Russian bomber pilot, was in absolute
hog heaven at the controls of a Boeing
727-100, a very old but still reliable airliner, one
of several aircraft leased from Valsan Partners,
a Norwalk, Connecticut, company that
specialized in re-engining and refurbishing Boeing
727's. "I wish I could feel more positive about
this release system, Captain. It is giving us a
lot of problems."
  "I want results, not excuses,
Mikheyev!" Cazaux shouted on the scrambled
radio channel. "You wanted this mission--you begged
me to let you fly the 727 on the primary strike--
and your partners were paid to devise a release system."
  Mikheyev and several of his fellow Russian
aviators devised a complex but clever system
to drop their explosives on the primary target--
Universal Express's huge package-handling
facility at Memphis International. The release
system was similar to the one designed by Cara
containers, each carrying fifteen hundred pounds of
explosives, would be rolled out of the rear airstair
door of the 727.
  But preceding the main explosives string, six
Mk 80 five-hundred-pound bombs would be
automatically dropped out of the baggage compartment hit
and explode a few seconds before the main
explosive charges, ripping off most of the
thirty-acre roof of the Universal Express
terminal and creating a nice hole for the main
explosives containers to pass through.
  Over twelve thousand pounds of explosives would
explode inside the building, ensuring maximum
destruction.
  The system used a handheld computer and GPS
navigation unit to roughly compute ballistics for the
drop. Mikheyev had guaranteed fifty-foot
accuracy on the string of containers from any altitude
and at any airspeed, even though the term
"ballistics" that he had used with Cazaux for
selling his plan was a real stretch because no actual
computations had been done on the ballistic flight
path of the cargo containers. Mikheyev had been paid
handsomely for the ambitious plan, and now, just minutes
from his drop, he was trying to back away from his
promise. "I will accept no excuses for
failure," Cazaux warned.
  "Captain, the target is too small,"
Mikheyev complained. The intended target was not the
super hub, or aircraft parking and
package-handling facility--that was mostly open ramp
space, conveyor belts, and packages
being sorted for delivery, all easily replaceable
in relatively short time. The intended target was the
westernmost part of the super hub that housed Universal
Express's complex of communications and
package-delivery control computers, as well as
its main corporate headquarters. The computers
cost a whopping three billion dollars to install and
modernize over the years--replacing them would cost
two to three times that much. Of the entire thirty-acre
complex, the target area was about fifteen thousand
square feet.
  With an airliner flying at four hundred feet
per second, using a sophisticated but untested
release system, there was very little room for error. "I
will do my best, but I cannot guarantee--"
  "You will ensure that your drop is precisely on
target," Cazaux shouted on the radio, the anger
in his voice barely attenuated by the crackle and
warbling of the frequency-hopping system, "or I will
personally hunt you and your family down. I know where
your family resides in Belize, and I know about
your eighteen-year-old mistress. I know the
license plate number of the Land-Rover your wife
drives.
  I know which Catholic school your twin
daughters go to, and I know that your lovely
daughters have just become women .. ." Cazaux let
up on the mike button, and sure enough,
Mikheyev was letting loose a stream of epithets
in Russian.
  "If you fail, I will drag your wife, your
mistress, and your daughters before you, have my soldiers
sodomize them, then strip their skin off, one by one.
You will watch them all die, slowly and painfully."
  "You bastard!" Mikheyev shouted. He said
something unintelligible in Russian, but it was
obvious that the force of his anger was subsiding.
  He knew full well that Cazaux would carry out
his threat.
  "You are a professional soldier," Cazaux
added in a softer tone after Mikheyev had ceased his
protests. "You know the price of failure--death,
to you and your family. That is the law of the mercenary.
  My laws were well known to you before you signed up and
before you took your very generous payment for this mission.
Failure is not allowed.
  "On the other hand, if you succeed, I will see to it
that your family is paid the full amount of what is
owed to you. They will be made comfortable for the rest of their
lives. I give you my word as a
soldier, and I have never broken faith with a
comrade-in-arms.
  Failure will be severely punished. Success will
be rewarded--even if you do not survive."
  Cazaux was not going to say anything else
to Mikheyev, but the Russian pilot did not
reply anyway. He had his choice--perfect
accomplishment of his mission, or the undignified,
horrible death of every woman close to him, then himself.
  Of course, there was only one way Mikheyev
could ensure that the target was totally destroyed .. .
  At exactly four miles out, the call came
in: "Express-107, outer marker." Aha,
Gayze thought, a new voice! Definitely
older, definitely more professional sounding, with a
trace of a foreign accent. The Captain was finally
awake .. . "107, roger, traffic ahead is a
Metroliner one mile descending, you're number
five."" "107, contact on the Metro, cancel
I.f.r."
  This flight was finally starting to sound like they really had
a professional pilot at the controls, Gayze
thought with relief.
  Canceling I.f.r erased the cylinder of
protected airspace around his aircraft
and really helped to expedite traffic flow,
especially since Universal-107 was the one
responsible for gumming it up in the first place
by keeping his speed up so high. Gayze could now
tighten the spacing up on the arrivals and clear out the
airspace that much faster.
  He didn't know for sure if the Universal
pilot could really see the much smaller Fairchild
Metro commuter airliner, but he was committed
to following it now: "Roger, 107, maintain
visual contact with the Metro, squawk 1200,
you're number four now behind the Metroliner, cleared
to land."
  "Universal-107 cleared to land on the left,"
the Universal pilot responded. Couple more
minutes, Gayze thought, and this flight would be out of his
hair for the night, or at least until it was time for
him to turn and depart. Maybe he would be off on
break by then.
  "Memphis Tower, American-501, with you
level seven."
  "American-501, good evening, winds
three-zero-zero at three, you're number six,
report established on GPS inbound course."
  "501, wilco."
  Things were busy, but not too bad. To an air
traffic controller, spacing was the name of the game.
After ten years, Gayze could look at the lights in
the sky and accurately determine a plane's
altitude, speed, and spacing--radar was the best
way, but a quick glance at the landing lights usually
told him what he needed to know the fastest And now there
was a glitch developing and, no surprise, it was from
the Universal Express newcomer. There was a
noticeable gap in the sequence of landing lights--the
Universal Express plane had no lights on,
which meant its landing gear was probably not down.
  "Express-107, check wheels down, wind
calm." No response.
  "Universal Express-107, Memphis
Tower, check wheels down and verify, over."
  Gayze didn't wait for an answer this time, but
said to the tower supervisor in a loud voice,
"John, number four for landing three-six left
has no lights--and I get no response."
  Simultaneously, someone else shouted out,
"John, I got a NORDO and possible no gear
down on two-mile final on two-seven. I think
he's going missed approach." This was incredible--
two radioout planes landing at once with
no radios and no landing lights!
  The chances of that happening were astronomically high--
and so was the potential for disaster.
  "Bill, what's your NORDO'S altitude?"
the supervisor shouted.
  Gayze checked the BRITE scope: "Five
hundred and level--he might be going missed
too."
  "Is he turning?"
  "No."
  "Damn it. Conflict alert procedures!" the
supervisor shouted.
  "Abort all departures! Clear the runways,
get on the lights, give those pilots some safe
options."
  The tower supervisor calmly stepped over to his
communications console while watching his radar scope.
The phone and radio buttons on his console were
arranged precisely in conflict alert procedures
order, which connected with Memphis International's
two fire departments, the airport security
office, the Memphis fire department, and with
dispatchers for Universal Express and all of the
major airlines on the field. One by one, he
hit the buttons without looking at them and
calmly started talking: "Victor, Gayze at
Memphis Tower, conflict alert procedures,
runways three-six left and two seven, two
NORDO aircraft, three inbounds going missed,
one takeoff abort .. . Atlanta Center,
Memphis Tower, conflict alert procedures, stand
by .. . Memphis Crash Network, Memphis
Crash Network, this is Memphis International
Control Tower, we have an aircraft collision
conflict alert, two no-radio airliners,
possible landing-gear malfunction on both, on
runways three-six left and two seven,
estimated six souls on board, all stations stand
by." By the time he finished all those calls, the
pilots flying the affected planes should have gotten
to the "What was that? What the hell did he say?"
stage, and the supervisor went through all the buttons
once again and repeated his instructions and
notifications.
  "Two miles out," someone called out. With a phone
in one ear and the radio earpiece in the other, Gayze
scanned the BRITE scope.
  Both no-radio airplanes had accelerated and
climbed slightly, both at about five hundred
feet above ground. On the radio,
Gayze said, "Express-107, are you able
to execute the published missed approach?
  Ident if you are executing the missed
approach." No response, either on the
"Three-six left's clear!" someone in the tower
shouted.
  Thank God, Gayze thought. On the radio,
he called, "Express107, you are clear to land,
runway three-six left, winds calm, eight
thousand three hundred feet available, rescue
equipment has been alerted. Ident if you can hear
me, over." Still no response's deviating right,"
the tower supervisor shouted. "The other inbound is
deviating right. Neither one of them is executing the
proper missed approach, but at least they're not on
a collision course.
  Still at about five hundred feet .. . Jesus,
the other Universal flight is accelerating past
two-forty." There was a speed limit of 240
miles per hour inside Class B airspace--
the aircraft that was trying to land on runway
two-seven was about to blow past that. "What in hell
is going on? They look like they're doing the exact
same thing-they're both accelerating, both flying at
five hundred feet, both screaming
towards the runway--"
  "Like a friggin" air show," someone else
remarked.
  "Think they got stuck flight controls?" another
controller wondered aloud. "Or are they trying
to rendezvous? Maybe they're military."
  "I hope this isn't some kind of joke," the tower
supervisor said.
  "I'm gonna kick some asses up in
Universal if this is some kind of company stunt."
  Gayze was still talking on the radios, trying
to coach a few of the inbound flights on the proper
go-around procedures and coordinating with Memphis
Approach for handing off all these airplanes into their
laps. the spot of dark sky where Universal
flight 107 was, as if he could see directly
into the cockpit at the pilot. That voice, the
pilot's voice--not the young kid, but the newcomer,
the older, more experienced voice .. .
  It was foreign, slightly French, although the pilot
tried hard to conceal it under a phony southern accent.
Phony accent, phony call sign, now radio-out
and coming in hot .. . "Jesus, I think this is an
attack!" Gayze shouted. "I think we're under
attack!"
  "What? What did you say, Bill?"
  "Damn it, we gotta warn--" But he stopped,
confused. Who could they warn? There was nobody
to notify. "I think we should wave off
Universal-107 and the other inbound Universal
flight until we straighten this out."
  "That's not the proper procedure," the tower
supervisor said.
  "The best place for a NORDO plane is on the
ground."
  "They're not NORDO, they're attacking, was
Gayze shouted.
  "Now hold on, Bill .. ."
  The Shorts Sherpa was a military utility and
cargo plane, and had been fitted with a simple
drop system for paratroop and small cargo
parachute drops. A long boom mounted below the
pilot mast on the nose of the aircraft had three
arrows on it, calibrated for drops between eight
hundred and two thousand feet and two hundred
knots airspeed.
  One minute before drop time, Cazaux ordered
Roberts to open the cargo doors and extend the
ramp. When the first arrow passed across the intended
drop target, Cazaux issued the
get-ready signal, pushed the throttles up
to full power, and hit the first green release
button.
  Ken Roberts watched as a small cannon shot
the pilot parachute out the open cargo ramp into the
slipstream, and it instantly inflated behind the
airplane, putting tension on the release system.
When the target--the large main terminal building at
the junction of the two angled concourses--passed under
the second arrow on the pilot boom, Cazaux
hit a red, guarded button. The packing doors
on the main parachute case popped open, the pilot
parachute pulled the main parachute out of its case,
and the latches holding the cargo containers released. As
soon as the main parachute was fully inflated, it
pulled the cargo containers out of the Shorts' cargo
bay with a tremendous thundering sound, like a freight
train whizzing by at full speed.
  The chains connecting the cargo containers immediately
began to break from the immense strain of the slipstream as
soon as the wheels of the container ahead of it left the
ramp, so the explosives did not drop together. There
was nothing clean or aerodynamic about the containers--
they cartwheeled, Frisbeed, and Spuii all across
the sky during their fall to earth. The last
two containers, with less inertia than the others, almost
did not have enough energy to roll out of the cargo bay, but
Cazaux lifted the Shorts' nose skyward,
providing the last nudge necessary. The last two
explosives containers weren't going to hit
Cazaux's intended target--but it was still going to do the
job.
  The eighteen-story control tower at Memphis
International was located just north of the main terminal
complex, where it had a clear view of most of the
gates at the main, cargo, and Universal
Express terminals and full view of all
runways and taxiways.
  Half the tower crew was staring out the windows to the
east, waiting to catch a glimpse of the first emergency
aircraft; Gayze and the other half were watching out
toward the south, staring out into the darkness for the second
Universal Express plane and alternately
answering questions and vectoring aircraft away from the
field.
  Gayze had a junior controller shining a red
signal light at approximately where the
northbound Universal flight should be, telling the
pilot not to land. Another controller was doing the same
toward the east.
  Still no radio contact.
  The southern part of runway three-six left's
hammerhead parking area was brilliantly lit with
maintenance floodlights, and as soon as Universal
Express-107 crossed just a few hundred yards
east of that area, Gayze caught a glimpse of the
plane and shouted, "I see 1--7!
  Jesus Christ, what is he doing?" The plane
was low, but obviously too high to land unless he
dumped power and the nose and made a dive for the
runway. "I can see him easy--the pilot must be
able to see the runway, but he's gonna miss
three-six left by a hundred yards."
  "He could be going for the right," the tower supervisor
said.
  Gayze got on the radio and announced that 107
was not cleared to land on runway three-six right. The
eastern parallel runway's approach end was a
quarter mile farther north than three-six left,
but the Universal pilot was still going to have to do some
aerobatics to make it on that runway too. He
looked as if he was going to overfly the main
commercial terminal building--if he wasn't
careful, he could hit some of the tall antennas on
top of the building. From the tower, he looked
as if he was going nearly three hundred knots-there
was no way he'd make it to the runway now. His
altitude was not much higher than the control tower.
  Suddenly, Gayze saw--well, he wasn't
sure what it was .. .
  "Trouble with Universal-107," he said aloud.
"I see debris, something falling out of the plane ..
. I think it's his landing gear .. .
  no, I see .. . a parachute! Damn it,
someone's parachuting out of the plane!"
  "Here he comes," someone in the tower cab shouted,
pointing to the east. "Looks like he's going to land on
two-seven. I see a landing gear--no, it's not a
landing gear.jesus, he's screaming in!
  Is he going around? What in hell is he
doing?"
  Gayze turned. The westbound airliner was
descending rapidly, aiming for the end of the runway.
He was still off a bit to the right of centerline on
radar, but his wheels were down and he looked like he was
on a fast but good approach. It definitely
appeared as if a lowtime pilot or perhaps a stricken
pilot was flying the westbound flight.
  The tower supervisor punched the crash button:
"Memphis crash network, this is
Memphis Tower, one Universal Express
727 aircraft landing hot on runway
two-seven. His gear is down. Be advised, the
northbound aircraft is--" He was going to miss the
runway. At less than a half-mile
to touchdown, the 727 would not be able to turn fast enough at
his present speed to make the runway unless he landed
well past midfield." Crash, be advised, the
727 landing on two-seven is well north of
centerline and fast. He may be going into the Air
National Guard parking ramp.
  If he tries to turn back to the runway,
he'll mush in with his left wing .. . oh, shit ..
. climb, damn you, climb .. . climb .
  .
  ."
  And then the 727 hit the Universal Express
package shipping center.
  The entire northern part of the airfield
illuminated brighter than daylight. The western half
of the sprawling cargo complex disappeared in an
enormous lake of fire. The fireball that was a
220,000-pound airliner plunged through the western
half of the thirty-acre cargo complex, disappeared
for a few seconds, bounced on the ground,
blew out the northwest side of the building, and
cartwheeled several times across the ground, shredding the
western half of the building--Universal
Express's executive offices, communications
center, and computer complex--as it tumbled. The heat
of the explosion, nearly a half-mile away, could be
felt right through the slanted tower windows, and Gayze
was thrown to the floor when the shock wave hit and
shattered those windows, the blast-furnace heat
rolling across the tower like a fiery tidal wave .. .
  But it was not the north windows that blew out--it was the
southern windows, behind Gayze. He leaped to his
feet as soon as he could shake the shock and noise
from his head. A few controllers were rushing for the exit
door, but Gayze just stood there, bathing himself in the
heat and the noise and the light coming from an explosion-not
on the Universal Express cargo facility, but
on the main terminal.
  Gayze was reaching for the crash phone button again,
but the tower supervisor pulled his hand away--the tower
was dead. "Get out of here, Bill."
  "What the hell happened? Did 107 hit the
terminal?"
  "The tower's been damaged, Bill. Get
going."
  But Gayze couldn't make his feet move. As
horrible as the spectacular crash on the
Universal Express facility was, what had
happened behind him on the main terminal was even more
shocking.
  The main terminal building, right at the intersection
beteen the east and west concourses, was on fire,
severed and flattened in a fiery crater. Two
airliners were on fire, and two more were spun
sideways from the force of the blast. Gayze could see
inside one L-1011 airliner, and the flickering
lights in its windows told him that passengers were
rushing toward the exits inside. The fire was still
several yards away when Gayze saw doors pop
open and emergency escape slides deploy on the
side of the plane opposite the fire. A few
doors opened on the side of the fire, but no
passengers used that exit, thank God. The
evacuation seemed rapid and orderly .. .
  .. . but it wasn't fast enough, because suddenly the
L's left wing caught fire, then exploded,
ripping the fuselage of the big air liner in half.
Passengers and baggage spilled from the ruptured
halves of the airliner onto the fiery tarmac.
Gayze ducked when the force of the explosion
hit him up in the open tower cab.
  "Bill!" someone shouted. "Get out! Let's
go!"
  But Gayze looked through the clouds of smoke and
fire at the terminal.
  It was not just the main terminal that had been hit--now
he could see huge fires breaking out on the north
side of the terminal, the northwest corner of the parking
garage, and the south side of the Sheraton Hotel, just
a few hundred yards west of the control tower. He
could hear the roar of the fire, smell the burning
kerosene--it was like looking at a firestorm.
  "Bill! Damn it, let's go!"
  Smoke was rapidly filling the control tower, and
Gayze was forced to drop on his knees and crawl to the
stairs toward the exit.
  His eyes were filled with tears, and not all of it was
from the smoke.
  "Oh .. . my .. . God .. ." Roberts
muttered in stunned disbelief as the series of
explosions and fires rippled across Memphis
International Airport below him. But the sight of the
burning terminal and hotel was nothing compared to the
horrifying sight of the sea of fire that was once the
Universal Express super hub. It
looked like a nuclear bomb had simply flattened
and vaporized the entire northern half of the
airport. The flames still shooting from the impact
site seemed to tower far above the Shorts'
altitude, and the ripples of fire made it seem
like the bottom of a volcano's lava pit.
  "I said, close the cargo doors, Roberts,"
Cazaux ordered over the intercom. Roberts still was
too stunned to make his feet or hands move. All
that death, all that destruction--and he had witnessed it
all, been in on the planning of all of it. It was a
terrorist attack on his own people, his own countrymen.
It was an attack incomprehensible to the young
American, more devastating than anything he had ever
heard of since the World Trade Center bombing.
They were turning westbound, so he could no longer see
the fires at the Sheraton or the main terminal--those
attacks were by his own hand .. .
  "I know it is painful, Kenneth," a voice
said. It was Henri Cazaux, standing beside him--
obviously the plane was on autopilot.
  "The destruction, it is horrible, no?"
  "God, yes," Roberts said in a low voice.
"All those people down there, all that death."
  "It is time you joined them," Cazaux
said quietly, just before he grasped Roberts by the
forehead from behind, drove his infantry knife up through
the base of Roberts' skull into his brain, and
wiggled the knife point around inside his skull
several times to scramble his brain matter. There was
virtually no blood--Roberts' heart had stopped
beating instantly, as if shut off with a switch.
Cazaux merely picked him up by the blade of his
knife, still embedded deep in his skull, took him
to the edge of the open cargo ramp, and dropped him over
the side.
  The autopilot was weaving the Shorts around the sky
unsteadily, and there was a little turbulence from the heat
radiating off the hills of western Tennessee and
northern Mississippi, but Cazaux did not
seem to notice it. He stood on the edge of the
Shorts' cargo ramp, the toes of one foot
actually over the edge itself, with no safety line or
parachute, looking at the incredibly bright glow of
Memphis International Airport on fire.
  He dared God, dared the Devil, dared any
man or being to take him.
  It was easy--just a slight buffet, a sudden
ripple of air, a short interruption of thousands of
circuits running through the Shorts'
autopilot system--and he would be thrown into space,
just as dead as Ken Roberts.
  No, it was not his time to die, not yet. Jo Ann
Vega was right: the dark master had given him the gift
of invincibility.
  He wanted the death to continue .. .
  Beale Air Force Base, Yuba City,
California Several Minutes Later Despite
being a retired two-star Coast Guard admiral,
Ian Hardcastle preferred the Non-Commissioned
Officers lounge on Beale Air Force Base;
he and his small staff had virtually taken over the
billiard room again with an impromptu
drinks-and-dinner meeting.
  Colonel Also Vincenti, who, with the help and
support of Hardcastle, Martindale, and the
Senate subcommittee, had been cleared of all
charges (but had not yet been returned to flight
status), was haphazardly banging billiard balls
around on the well-worn felt with Hardcastle.
  Hardcastle's chief of staff, retired Air
Force colonel, military analyst, and
political consultant Marc Sheehan, his fourth
cup of coffee of the night in one hand, was reading from a
sheaf of notes: "Admiral, I think
we're ready to make this presentation to the Project
Task Force executive committee," he said.
"I think this is a masterful piece of work."
  "I'd rather take a bit of time to get more data,"
Hardcastle said, missing a complicated two-rail
bank shot. Vincenti cast a questioning eye at
Hardcastle's showy but hopeless shot and easily
sunk his own.
  "There's a lot of stuff this report is missing.
And I wish I had more time with Martindale. He's
spent more time at fund-raisers and tours than on the
business at hand here."
  "Can I speak frankly, sir?" Sheehan
asked.
  "That's why I hired you, Marc. Out with it."
  "Sir, in my opinion, you suffer from the H.
Ross Perot syndrome," Sheehan said.
"Everybody loves Perot. He's a straight
shooter, he's knowledgeable--or at least he's got
a great staff--he's articulate and polished, and
he's not afraid to take on the big boys on their
own turf. He also gets no respect, for those very
same reasons. He hits people between the eyes with
clear-minded logic built on years of experience
--"
  "And people don't like it."
  "And people don't like it," Sheehan echoed. "And
government doesn't like it either. Folks tend to shut
you off simply because you come on strong--they think you have
a hidden agenda, a secret plan.
  Right or wrong doesn't matter."
  "Marc, I can't accept that," Hardcastle said,
lining up another shot after Vincenti intentionally
missed an easy shot just so he wouldn't clear the
table on Hardcastle again. It seemed Vincenti was
scowling at everyone--at Hardcastle, at
Sheehan, at the world. He had not said ten words all
evening unless asked a specific question, and nothing that
anyone had said all evening seemed to please him.
  "What I'm writing about here is not fiction--it's
real," Hardcastle went on. "My goals and
methods are real and workable."
  "Sir, what you're describing is America under
siege, America on the defensive," Sheehan
said. "Nobody likes to hear that we're so
vulnerable. They would rather believe that you're a flake
rather than we're facing a major terrorist crisis
in this country."
  Hardcastle flubbed another shot by trying a long,
difficult shot, scratching in the
process. Vincenti put Hardcastle out of his
billiards misery by clearing the table again.
Hardcastle didn't seem to notice, but asked
Vincenti, "Set "em up again, Also, double or
nothing."
  "I can swim in the beer you owe me already,
Admiral," Vincenti pointed out.
  "You don't drink, remember? You thought betting
double-or nothing beers with you was a sucker bet?
I'll never pay off. Set 'err up,"
Hardcastle repeated with a smile. "Marc, I'm
ready to go to the Task Force in the morning."
  "The press conference is set for next week, was
Sheehan reminded him.
  "Why not wait a few days, get some more
feedback from the congressional leadership? Our little
clambake in Virginia Beach i.
  set for this weekend, and so far attendance looks
good."
  "Clambake?" Vincenti asked as he
retrieved the billiard balls.
  "Good way to feel out the heavy hitters in
Congress," Hardcastle explained. "Project
2000 is throwing a party out on Virginia Beach
for the leadership and their families--private
transportation, plenty of chow and booze, private
beach, even parasailing and Je Skis. We gotta
lure the big cheeses to at least listen to what we have
to say. Even thirty minutes with them, talking about
our programs, would be worth the money."
  "Yeah. Right. Makes sense," Vincenti
muttered. He finished racking the balls, then put
his cue stick on the table. "Sir, excuse me.
  but I've got to get going," Vincenti said.
Hardcastle looked up at him, a hint of a smile
on his face. "If you don't need me anymore,
I'll be hitting the road."
  "You got something to say, Also, say it,"
Hardcastle said.
  "Spill it."
  "Sir? his
  "You've been scowling and shaking your head at me and
Marc all night, Vincenti, but you haven't said a
word," Hardcastle said.
  "You got some baggage to unload, so do it."
  "I don't have anything to contribute here."
  "Bullshit. I've got you here for a reason,"
Hardcastle said.
  "You read the report."
  "I gave you my comments, sir."
  "Nice, polite, Air Command and Staff
College point paper," Hardcastle said.
"Standard responses. Pretty disappointing."
  "I guess I'm just not politically savvy,
Admiral."
  "I don't need your political savvy,
Also," Hardcastle said.
  "Task Force 2000 and Colonel Sheehan
handle that for me."
  "So what do you need, sir?"
  "I need you to tell me if I'm right, if I'm
close, or if I'm full of shit, Also."
  "I've already commented on your plan."
  "So I'm right, then," Hardcastle said.
Vincenti was about to speak, but remained silent. "So
I'm not right," Hardcastle concluded.
  "So which is it, Also? Am I close or full
of shit?"
  Vincenti stared at Hardcastle, obviously
trying to decide what the politically correct
answer to that question was. "God damnit, Vincenti,
I was told you weren't one for holding back, that you
spoke your mind.
  So let's have it."
  "Sir, I'm not really qualified
to tell you how to run this."
  "It's about Linda, isn't it, Also?"
  Vincenti's frown deepened, and darkened. "What
are you talking about, Admiral?"
  "Linda McKenzie. She's dead, and you think
it's your fault."
  The rest of Hardcastle's staff had stopped
talking and had turned to watch this exchange. "Sir,
"Vincenti said, looking Hardcastle right in the
eyes. "With all due respect, you don't know
shit.
  his
  "Linda was your wingman."
  "Stop calling her by her first name like you knew her,
Admiral.
  She's Major McKenzie to you."
  "Whose fault was it that you launched with defective
night vision goggles?" Hardcastle asked. "Whose
fault was it that Linda was allowed to close in on
Cazaux without her checklist completed?
  Whose fault was it that she was allowed to approach
too close to an armed and dangerous suspect?"
  "I don't have to explain anything to you,
Hardcastle."
  "I don't think she should have even been
on alert with you, Also, was Hardcastle went on,
taking a step towards Vincenti, who was now,
Sheehan noticed with some alarm, within arm's reach.
"I think you're a piss-poor flight leader,
Also. How in hell could you let Linda fly with you
after you'd been screwing her?"
  A half-dozen bodies moved in unison at that
last comment, like runners leaping off the starting block.
Vincenti lunged for Hardcastle, Sheehan lunged
for Vincenti, and the other staff members dropped
notebooks and laptop computers and leaped to their
feet in surprise.
  Vincenti got his hands on Hardcastle's shirt,
but Sheehan looped his arms over Vincenti's from
behind, and the two Air Force officers were evenly
matched. Hardcastle simply smiled, allowing
Vincenti to shake him and rage: "You pompous
arrogant asshole." Sheehan dragged Vincenti
away from Hardcastle and steered him against the pool
table.
  He was angry at Vincenti for daring to raise a
hand toward Hardcastle, but he was even more surprised
and angry at Hardcastle for speaking that way to the
Air Force pilot.
  "Knock it off!" Sheehan shouted. His
anger turned on Hardcastle, as it should be:
"Admiral, you were out of line."
  "Yes, I was, and I apologize,"
Hardcastle said calmly to Vincenti.
  "But I'm also correct, aren't I, Also?"
No response, only a glare.
  "Talk to me, Also. You're the key to everything
I'm trying to do here.
  Talk to me, damn it."
  "Why the hell should I trust you, Hardcastle?"
Vincenti shouted.
  "What are you trying to do here? What's your game?
Who gave you the right to poke your nose in any of
this?"
  "I'm here because I've got a big mouth, Also,"
Hardcastle said evenly.
  "I've got a colorful past, and people listen to me
because I entertain them with my attitude and my
showmanship. But I'm really here because I care."
  "Bullshit," Vincenti said. "You're here because you
can get some press for yourself and this Project 2000
crap."
  "Yeah, I've got some ideas that I want
everybody to hear," Hardcastle admitted. "I
get shut off and shut down because no one
wants to hear my side--they'd rather hear the
watered-down, everything-is beautiful rap coming from the
White House. Yeah, I want press for the
Project 2000 Task Force because they believe in
what I believe in and they have the financial
resources I don't. But I've got an
agenda, Vincenti, and that is a strong national
defense, pure and simple.
  I'm here because this incident is just another example
of government inaction, another consequence of a weakened
military."
  "I've heard your big plans already--on TV,
in the papers, on the radio, at the speeches,"
Vincenti said. "But frankly it's all garbage,
because you don't know what you're talking about. You made
the same damned mistake with the Hammerheads,
Hardcastle. But you were too wrapped up in how
important you were, with deploying these big-assed
air ops platforms, with putting up all these radar
balloons, to understand the basic concepts. You had the
authority to launch air defense units for your
missions, Hardcastle, but did you ever ask an air
defense puke how to set up a proper air
sovereignty order of battle? You had your Coast
Guard guys and your Customs Service
guys out there, but did you ever bring an air defense
guy on board as part of your staff? Hell no."
  "I had Air Force representatives on my
staff--"
  "Sure--for AWACS and OTH-B, not for the
guys who really knew the air sovereignty game,
us pilots in the field," Vincenti said.
  "You sucked up almost the entire E-3
AWACS fleet on drug-interdiction stuff, and you
took over all the long-range over-the-horizon
backscatter radar ops, but you never employed the
F-4's, F-106's, F-15's, and
F-16 air defense fighters for your operations
except when that crazy bastard Salazar used
military hardware on your platforms.
  Plus you spent billions on all that fancy
hardware, when all the time you had the best pilots and the
best planes in the business already in place." Marc
Sheehan stepped forward toward Vincenti. "I think
you've said enough, Colonel Vincenti."
  "No, let him finish, Marc." Hardcastle
smiled. "I want to hear this.
  Go ahead, Also. Continue. You don't like it.
Tell me why."
  "Because you're doing it half-assed, that's
why," Vincenti said.
  "You did it half-assed wrong with the
Hammerheads, and you're doing it half-assed now.
You're still thinking two-dimensionally, still thinking in
razzle-dazzle terms instead of strategic,
layered, logical, multilayered structures. You
had fancy, expensive tilt-rotors and drones
and a few helicopters and boats, and almost nothing
else.
  When your aviation units got into trouble, when the
politicians believed your air units couldn't do
the job, your whole infrastructure was weakened and your
organization collapsed. Hell, your air units
were properly doing their job, and one lousy lawsuit,
one lousy smuggler, in which just one of your air units
was involved in, brought down your entire Border
Security Force in no time flat. Why?
  Because your basic organization was built on one
foundation--your air units.
  "The same thing will happen with your current plan,"
Vincenti went on.
  "Your current plans are based on air units
like the F-16 and F-15 fighters. But an
expert can easily blow holes in this plan, and I
think Cazaux is smart enough to get by even the
toughest air patrols.
  You wouldn't even survive a comparison between now and
your disbanded Hammerheads." Vincenti glared at
Sheehan, then at Hardcastle. "I thought advising
future presidents, formulating policy and laws,
spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and you
can't even see how fucked up you are."
  "Then help me fix it," Hardcastle said.
"Help me create a system to stop terrorists like
Cazaux."
  "You don't have the guts," Vincenti said. "All
I see is a bunch of bureaucrats jockeying for
position. You throwyour beach parties and press
conferences and fund-raisers, but when it comes time
to actually put the hardware on the line, you back
off. I'm not going to waste my breath on a bunch of
politicos whose only goal is to rack up
percentage points in the polls or electoral
votes."
  Sheehan, who had stepped away for a few
minutes, came back and said, "Sir, we got a
call from Vice President Martindale. He's
on his way back from San Francisco now.
Cazaux hit another airport.
  Memphis International. Just a few
minutes ago. They're saying the death toll could be
in the thousands this time."
  "Oh, my God .. ." gasped Hardcastle.
  "He got a call from the President,
Admiral," Sheehan went on.
  "He wants you and your staff to report to the
White House immediately.
  They want a complete briefing on your plans
to set up an air defense network in the United
States."
  "Jesus .. . Marc, phone the flight crew,
get the Gulfstream ready to go, drop me off at
base ops, and get the investigation team together right
away," Hardcastle said. He turned to Vincenti:
"Also, you're with me."
  "I'm not cleared to leave the base, Admiral."
  "I just cleared you," Hardcastle said. "You're a
member of my staff, effective yesterday, and the
President has just ordered you to Washington.
We've got about five hours for you to tell me
precisely what I need to do to make my air
defense plan airtight. Let's go."
  PART 3
  The White House Cabinet Room The Next
Morning've got only one thing to say to you,
Admiral Hardcastle," Deputy Attorney
General Elizabeth Lowed said angrily,
dramatically waving a bound report in her hand, then
tossing it on the Cabinet Room table in disgust just
as the door leading to the Oval Office opened and
everyone got to their feet.
  "You must be totally insane, or at the very least so
ill-informed as to defy reason and logic." She saw
the President of the United States stride in,
then said to him, "Mr. President, I can't
believe you even allowed that crack pot in this room
at a time like this."
  "Allow me to respond to the Deputy
Attorney General's statement, Mr.
President--on the record," Ian Hardcastle
said, a slight, challenging smile on his face.
  "This meeting will come to order," the President's
chief of staff said.
  Lowed quietly took her seat with the others after the
President was seated, glaring angrily at Ian
Hardcastle. What he did not know was that
Elizabeth Lowed, one of the President's most
capable political insiders, had met personally
with the President just before the meeting and had already been
instructed as to how this meeting was going
to proceed--her tirade against Hardcastle was part of a
hastily but carefully rehearsed trap for
Hardcastle and his cohorts.
  The members of the Executive Committee on
Terrorism, the group responsible to the National
Security Council and the President for all
antiterrorist matters, had assembled in the White
House Cabinet Room to receive the latest briefing
on the hunt for Henri Cazaux. The E.c.t was
composed of senior officials from the Departments of
Treasury, Justice, State, Defense,
Transportation, and Energy, along w Agency and the
National Security Council staff. Because the
President had convened this meeting at the White
House, most of the Cabinet itself was present along with
their E.c.t representatives, so it was a tight
fit in the Cabinet Room.
  This was just the latest crisis in what seemed like an
Administration plagued by problems from the very beginning,
starting with a furor over the President's attempt
to drop the ban on gays in the military, to his
health care package, to problems within his own White
House.
  His wife, for instance, known around town as the Steel
Magnolia, was conspicuously absent from this
and other meetings as of late.
  A formidable woman who was highly intelligent
and, for a while, almost inseparable from her husband, the
Steel Magnolia had recently been devoting
all her time to extricating herself from a shady
realestate deal that was now threatening to turn into a
Watergate-sized problem for the Administration. Things
weren't helped when her own counsel killed himself.
  But even now, in the midst of a major domestic
crisis, the President hardly had time to worry
about his wife. There were far bigger problems at hand for
this poor boy from what many had laughingly called a
hillbilly southern state. This current crisis
might be the final straw for his Administration.
Depending, of course, on how he handled it.
  Joining the President, the E.c.t members,
and Hardcastle were Colonel Also Vincenti;
Colonel Marc Sheehan, Hardcastle's aide;
and Deborah Harley, who was cleared to come to this
meeting as an assistant to Hardcastle but who was in
reality an executive assistant to Kevin
Martindale--the former Vice President was not
invited to attend this meeting, but he made sure he
had his spy in place. If the President or his
staff knew about Harley, they did not
seem to care.
  Vincenti's face looked grim as Lam
Wilkes, the director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, began the briefing with a rundown of the
attack on Memphis International Airport
last evening. He could all-too-easily envision the
two airliners barreling in toward the airport, then
raining devastation on hundreds of innocent people below.
  Thankfully, the death toll was not as high as in
San Francisco--over two hundred dead and
over five hundred injured, mostly at the
Universal Express super hub facility--but
Vincenti felt responsible for each and every one of their
deaths. When he looked up, he saw a few of the
E.c.t members looking back at him, and he
felt that they were silently accusing him of not stopping
Cazaux when he had the chance.
  Hardcastle looked at the oval cherry table, his
hands folded in front of him, with a stony, neutral
expression; Sheehan was watching the southern
President (who was popping MandMs into his mouth from
a jar on the table) and Hardcastle, waiting for the
sparks to fly.
  "We're assisting the local authorities in
hunting down the aircraft," Judge
Lam Wilkes was saying, "but the attack on the
airport knocked out all the radar control centers
in the entire region--both Approach and Center
radar control centers are located at Memphis
International--an "Our best lead right now circles
on aircraft dealers in the south and southeast,
particularly ones handling civil and
military-surplus cargo aircraft. But there are
two hundred and thirty such dealers and brokers in the
region; plus, getting a plane from Central or
South America flown into the southern U.s. is
too easy.
  Getting warrants to search each establishment will
take time.
  We--" Hardcastle let out an exasperated
sigh at the mention of warrants. A few eyes
darted in his direction, but Hardcastle did not speak
and no one else said a word. Wilkes, pretending
she did not notice, continued, "Sir, I've said
this before: we can't let our concern over Cazaux's
attacks force us to degenerate into simply lashing out
at every hint of criminal or suspected terrorist
activities--it's stretching my manpower too thin,
and it's creating more panic. We've got every
available federal agent involved in this
manhunt. I've got agents in Mexico and
Canada. I've diverted extra agents to four
different locations following up investigations on
suspicious explosions, and each one has come up with
nothing. The Bureau has investigated over one
hundred bombings in the United States just last
month, and none of them were tied in to Cazaux."
  "But now Cazaux's finally gone over the edge, and
I believe we've got to investigate each
incident," said Transportation Secretary
Ralph Mersky. He turned to the President and
said, ""Mr. President, under the Federal
Aviation Regulations, I've had the FAA close
Tucson International Airport because a suspected
terrorist incident is under investigation--we think
Cazaux was flying on a commercial airliner, and he
was afraid of getting caught and killed some airline
service workers to make his escape. By the law, I
shollld close every other major airport near any
of these other suspected terrorist incidents as well
--whether or not judge Wilkes believes they have
anything to do with Cazaux. But I've had meetings with
every major air carrier in the country, and to a man
they've pleaded with me not to shut down the airports."
  "What in hell would you expect them
to say?" Deputy Attorney General Lowed
interjected. Under the National Security Act of
1949, the Deputy Attorney General of the
United States was the most senior manager of any
domestic terrorism crisis. Elizabeth Lowed
was a hard-nosed Army veteran, attorney, and
Washington lobbyist--perfectly suited for the job of
dealing with the exclusive men's domains of defense and
antiterrorist strategy and response. "They need
to keep making money, and they're willing to bet other
people's lives on the long odds that Cazaux will strike
anywhere else but their location or their planes."
  "I know that, Liz," Mersky shot back, "but
I need the White House's direction on this one."
To the President, he continued: "We've already
enacted Level Three security, which deals
primarily with terrorist threats such as bombs in
baggage, sabotaging planes at the gate, car
bombs near terminals, that sort of thing. The law
says I must enact Level Two security
measures at all airports that carry more than
eighteen passengers per plane if terrorist
activity is suspected in the vicinity or on a
national level, Mr. President."
  The President of the United States,
sitting half-slouched at his big desk in the
Cabinet Room, looked as if sleep and he were
complete strangers. He was tall, young compared
to recent Chief Executives, well-b thick and
bushy. But the dark bags under his eyes from lack of
sleep, and the wrinkles around the eyes caused
by stress and squinting at reports and televisions
without using his glasses, made him look
considerably older. He wrapped his big hands around
a coffee cup and took a sip--cold again. He
let the cup rattle back onto its saucer,
popped some more MandMs into his mouth (his affection
for junk food was legendary), then drawled,
"Ralph, it doesn't sound like this Level Three
protects anyone if Cazaux drops a damned
bomb on their heads.
  Why hasn't stricter security been set up
already?"
  "Sir, the reason is that we have no procedures
for dealing with air raids against major airports
inside the United States except for closing them
down," Mersky said. "We have Civil Defense
procedures drawn up thirty years ago for use
in case of Soviet air raids, and even then they
mostly deal with evacuation, medical care,
restricting access to navigation facilities--"
  "So the only option we have right now is to close the
airports until we track this Cazaux down?"
the President asked incredulously.
  God, how he hated these meetings without his wife
present. That fucking real-estate deal was consuming
all of her time, time that she could have been spending
helping him. Damn her. They should have never invested in
that fucking land in the first place. Oh, well.
  They'd just have to live with it. And he,
unfortunately, was having to live without her at a time
when he needed her most--like now.
  "Hey, you don't need to be a rocket
scientist to understand what a disaster that would be.
Remember how disrupted everything was when American
Airlines' flight attendants went on strike.
Remember the panic? Jesus. I want to hear more
options." He turned to Hardcastle, Vincenti, and
his Secretary of Defense, Dr. Donald
Scheer, and said, "Admiral Hardcastle, I
asked you to come down here because I've heard of your"--
he took a moment to consider his next words, then
decided to just say it--"genius, concerning this disaster.
  "I don't agree with it, and I frankly
suspect that much of it stems from your
political agenda with the Project 2000 Task
Force and Vice President Martindale's
campaign," he continued. "We don't need
partisan politics interfering with this investigation. I
think the little stunt you orchestrated in the Senate
to step into the middle of the FBI'S investigation of the
San Francisco attack was a cheap, dirty
trick to take advantage of the situation to promote
your own agenda."
  "Except Cazaux did strike again,"
Hardcastle pointed out bluntly.
  The President spread his hands and nodded.
"Yes, he did," he drawled.
  "I thought he'd be long gone, but he's not, and
he's got to be dealt with. And you offered your
technical assistance, which I deeply
appreciate." He picked up Hardcastle's
point paper on the air defense emergency and added
angrily, "But showing this report to the press at the
same time as handing it to me stinks. The American people
see you on TV promoting this plan, and they cling
to it because it's a "do-something, do-anything" move. It
makes me question your motivation here, Admiral: do you
really want to help me solve this crisis or are
you just pushing a political agenda?"
  "I'm trying to stop Cazaux, Mr.
President," Hardcastle said evenly.
  "It's that simple. With all due respect,
sir, how you respond to this crisis affects your own
political agenda more than how I respond."
  "When I need your advice on politics,
Admiral, I'll ask," the President
snapped. "With all due respect, Admiral,
dealing with you is worse than Cazaux--at least that
maniac is not on TV every two hours.
  But let's get back to what we should do about
Cazaux. Dr. Scheer's staff has outlined your
suggestions for me, and although I consider your
response dangerous, it could be the only one
available to us."
  "I believe it is your only response, Mr.
President," Hardcastle said, "and I've
encouraged your advisers to just come out and say so.
  FAA Level One security is the only set
of procedures on the civilian side for dealing with
this emergency, and it won't help stop or find
Cazaux. Civil and strategic defense is
virtually nonexistent in this country. The FAA'S
SCATANA procedures basically entail shutting
down all but a few major airports and
most navigation radio facilities, and we're still
faced with finding and stopping Cazaux."
  "So your solution is to turn security for this
crisis over to the military?" Lam Wilkes
asked incredulously. She motioned to Hardcastle's
report. "You want to use the military inside the
United States for law enforcement?"
  "This is no longer a law enforcement question, Judge
Wilkes, this is a national defense crisis."
  "You're wrong, Hardcastle. This is a
criminal investigation, and it should be handled like one.
Mr. President, there is no doubt whatsoever that
this is a serious crisis, but imposing martial law
is not the answer."
  "I do not want to impose martial law," the
President said immediately, running his hand through his
hair. "Let's make that real clear right from the
get-go."
  "Mr. President, I've read Admiral
Hardcastle's proposed plan," Wilkes said,
"and it's nothing but a reactionary, grandstanding power
grab."
  "I couldn't agree more," Deputy Attorney
General Lowed said.
  "We don't need the military
to secure the skies and hunt down Henri
Cazaux. Mr. President, the Executive
Committee on Terrorism is in charge and in
control of this situation."
  "Judge Wilkes, Liz, hold on a
minute," the President said evenly.
  "I brought Hardcastle and the Colonel in here
to get their thoughts."
  He turned to Hardcastle again. "I was briefed
on your proposal, Admiral.
  It's pretty severe. Tell me why this isn't
martial law."
  "Mr. President, critics can label this
plan whatever they like," Hardcastle responded.
"My objective is simply to defend our major
international airports from aerial attack." r
r i , "Mr. President, I think the FBI
can handle this crisis without having to resort to this
extreme military option," Lowed said, holding up
her copy of the plan Hardcastle had proposed to the
Secretary of Defense.
  "You're talking about surface-to-air
missiles, fighters escorting commercial
airliners, free-fire zones around major cities
and ai7ports .. . ?" She shook her
head in disbelief. "Ludicrous. This is not some
damned Dale Brown novel, this is real-life."
  "It has to be set up and executed as if this was
an overseas American military installation under
attack by a foreign hostile military force,"
Hardcastle explained. "Sir, the plan
presupposes that we want air traffic in this
country to continue at the highest possible level of
efficiency."
  "That goes without saying, Admiral."
  "Then, sir, it will be easier than taking candy from
a baby for Henri Cazaux to attack any
airport at will, unless we have a layered,
iron-clad defense network around every major
U.s. airport. It is absolutely
essential that we act to screen air traffic moving
in and out of our major airports in case Cazaux
slips past our dragnets and tries to attack."
  "I don't like the sound of this one bit," the
President remarked, wishing like hell that it wasn't
his Administration that had to deal with this shit. Why
couldn't they have just elected his wife? Let her handle
it, that's what he wanted. "But I invited you here
because enough people think your plan might have merit during this
emergency.
  What is it you propose, Admiral?"
  "Sir, my plan has two major elements,"
Hardcastle explained.
  "First, we control and monitor the movement of every
aircraft in the United States, using civilian
and military radar systems. Second, we use
airborne and ground-based air defense systems
to track, identify, and, if necessary, engage any
aircraft that is not properly identified or
deviates from its proper course."
  "This is the Hammerheads all over again," Lam
Wilkes said with an expression of disgust, as if
someone had passed gas.
  "Another assault on the Bill of Rights, eh,
Admiral?"
  "Until you catch Cazaux, there is no other
way to keep air traffic in this country moving
safely, Judge Wilkes."
  "You make it sound so sterile, Admiral,"
Transportation Secretary Mersky interjected.
"Putting every aircraft in the United States on
an instrument flight plan? That'll overload our
air traffic controllers.
  All others can't fly? That'll ground hundreds
of thousands of planes.
  And your term "engage" is a polite term for
"shoot down," as in "shoot down a commercial
airliner" if it strays too far off course or
turns the wrong way on a missed approach in
bad weather."
  "Admiral Hardcastle, I simply don't
think this plan will work-or if it is implemented, it
won't do any good and will cause more panic and confusion
than it will help," the Vice President added
stiffly.
  "Every plane flying into a major airport in the
country has to be escorted by an armed fighter? This
has got to be a violation of Constitutional rights."
  "The only way to positively identify a
suspect aircraft is to intercept it and check it
visually, sir," Vincenti interjected.
  "And in many cases, the only way to divert a
suspect away from a restricted area is by a
fighter intercept. The ground-based air defense
systems are a last resort only. Obviously,
shooting at a terrorist plane only a few
miles from a major airport will still cause
massive destruction on the airport, although if it
doesn't hit its intended target then the engagement
was a success.
  "The intercept must be as far from the intended target
and as far from major population centers as possible.
A Stinger missile has a range of perhaps one
to two miles, and the cannon on an Avenger
mobile air defense unit has an effective
range of half that. But a terrorist hit by an
Avenger cannon or a Stinger missile will more than
likely still crash on the airport, although the damage
and death it causes should be greatly reduced.
Patriot has a maximum range of about sixty
miles, the Hawk missile perhaps twenty--this is the
minimum range a suspected terrorist should be
allowed to approach."
  "This is nuts .. ." someone muttered.
  There were murmurs of concurrence around the room.
  "The main means of identification, control, and
engagement must be by armed fighter interceptors, which are
vectored into the intercept by AWACS radar
planes. Then, intercept the suspect as far from the
target as possible--preferably hundreds of
miles away," Vincenti went on.
  "All suspected terrorist aircraft must be
kept away from major airports, and the best way
to divert an airliner to another airport where it can be
inspected is with an interceptor."
  "This is insane to was Deputy Attorney
General Lowed said. "Can you imagine an American
Airlines flight with two hundred people on board
looking out and seeing a fighter on its wing? Jesus,
what if there's an accident? An accidental
shoot-down will cause mass hysteria."
  "General Lowed, I think we've already got
mass confusion bordering on hysteria right now,"
Hardcastle said. "My flight from California
to Washington was delayed for hours because someone's
flight plan was lost and they wouldn't allow the
aircraft into their airspace. I heard air
traffic controllers panicking on the radio every time
a plane strayed a couple miles off course--it
didn't matter that the plane was a little corporate
job hundred miles away from any major
airport. Sir, we've got to take control of this
situation or the public will panic."
  "Mr. President, with all due respect
to Colonel Vincenti, we should ask Admiral
Hardcastle and his staff to pack up their Patriot
missiles and F-16 fighter planes and go back
to the TV talk shows," Lowed said bitterly. "We
don't need his brand of frontier justice to keep
control of this situation."
  "I agree, Mr. President," FBI
Director Lam Wilkes chimed in.
  "Sir, Cazaux is going to make a mistake.
If that was his handiwork in Memphis, the net will only
pull tighter."
  "Okay, Liz," the President said, holding
up his hands. "Tell me what you've got in mind for
restoring confidence in air travelers?"
  While Lowed spoke, Deborah Harley,
Martindale's special assistant assigned
to Hardcastle for this meeting, leaned forward in her seat
behind Hardcastle and slipped him a note. He
turned to her.
  Harley was in her late forties, a pretty
blonde with bright green eyes and a thin but persistent
smile. "What's this, Miss Harley?" he
asked.
  "An observation, Admiral," she whispered.
Her smile seemed pleasant enough, but her eyes were
hard and insistent.
  Hardcastle frowned. He did not know Harley,
but had seen her on numerous occasions with Martindale
in a variety of functions-sometimes she acted as a
secretary, a chauffeur, a bodyguard, or even
as a wife.
  Martindale, divorced after being voted out of
office in the last election, had a variety of
beautiful women drifting in and out of his life--the
tabloids kept constant tabs on Martindale's
frequent flings--but only Deborah Harley
returned. She was beautiful and mysterious and could
even be considered alluring--perfect "tabloid
bait"--but the tabloids never pursued her.
Hardcastle had never spoken more than a few
pleasantries to her. She was all business.
  He had trouble reading her unfamiliar handwriting
--the message looked like, "It's a SITREP."
He was about to ask her what she meant when the
President addressed him: "How does that sound
to you, Admiral?"
  "I'm sorry, sir," Hardcastle responded,
folding the note and shoving it into a pocket, unread.
"Say again?"
  "Jesus, Admiral, we're having a meeting
over here, was Lowed muttered irritably. "I
suggested to the President that one way to monitor
air traffic is to restrict all flights from and
to towered fields on I.f.r flight plans
only, where tower personnel can visually identify
all departing aircraft and we can use the
A.t.c computers to help monitor all
traffic. In that way, we can keep a good portion of
general aviation traffic moving, eliminate the
pop-up radar targets, and we don't endanger
civil air traffic with missiles and guns."
  "If you'll notice, that's all part of my
plan, General Lowed," Hardcastle said. "I
think it's essential for authorities to know
precisely what the origin of each and every flight
is. As the system works now, a flight under visual
flight rules can enter the air traffic control
system anywhere. This is called a "pop-up"
flight plan, and we need to eliminate them.
Cazaux can load up a cargo plane with
explosives from some isolated desert base, take
off, then simply call up A.t.c and get a
flight plan to a major airport. He'll get
first-class A.t.c
  service-right to his bomb-release point.
By restricting flights from only towered airports,
federal authorities can directly determine who's
in the system. If a personal inspection is
warranted, we have a chance to do it--"
  "A visual inspection?" Lowed interjected.
"You mean visually inspect every plane that
looks suspicious? Hardcastle, do you have any
idea how many planes that is?"
  "On average, one plane over seventy-five
thousand pounds gross weight takes off every five
seconds from the thirty largest American
airports," Hardcastle replied. "That's over
seventeen thousand flights per day. But
three-quarters of those are scheduled passenger
flights, which leaves about four thousand flights per day
that are cargo flights or flights of unknown
purpose or cargo--business, private, small
commercial, expedited freight, all that. That's about
one hundred and thirty flights per day from each of the
nation's thirty largest airports, or about five
per hour. I believe those flights can be inspected.
If we organize local, state, and federal
authorities, including reserve law enforcement
personnel and the military, we can inspect each and every
flight.
  "But I don't have any illusions that this system will
be airtight," Hardcastle went on. "The Border
Security Force had a tight, overlapping,
redundant air surveillance network, and
smugglers still found ways around it. Cazaux is
clever as well as dangerous--I work under the
assumption that he'll figure out a way to beat the
system.
  But we must have a way to stop Cazaux before he
gets over the airport terminal, and that means an
integrated air defense network. We must have l the
ability to monitor, precisely track, and, if
necessary, attack any hostile aircraft anywhere in
the airspace system, primarily around the
thirty-three major airports under Class B
airspace in the United States."
  "I'm strongly opposed to this idea, Mr.
President," Lowed insisted. "I think it'll
result in accidents and needless civilian deaths.
  It's like letting Dirty Harry loose on the
airports."
  "I'm afraid I'm opposed to the idea as
well, Mr. President," Transportation
Secretary Mersky interjected. "There will be
problems integrating civil air traffic control
functions with military requirements."
  "But it can be done, Secretary Mersky,"
Hardcastle said. "I proved that with the Hammerheads.
I've had plenty of success with this type of
emergency, Mr. President. We can implement this
program in just a few days. I think it's
vital, sir."
  The President fell silent, apparently thinking
it over; then he turned to Hardcastle and said,
"All right, Ian. I don't like the idea, but we
gotta move on this thing." The President withdrew
a card from his jacket pocket, glanced at it, then
said, "Ladies and gentlemen, Deputy attorney
General Lowed, I'm going to announce to Congress
that under 10 U.s.c. 332 and 333, I'm
directing a military response to this crisis
situation. Deputy Lowed, under the law I'm
appointing a military representative as your
deputy director of the Executive Committee
on Terrorism. He'll interface with Justice and
various branches of the military and coordinate an
effective response. I want to emphasize that
the military's involvement is limited to protection
of major airports around the country, not in law
enforcement matters."
  The President then turned toward Hardcastle and
continued, "It's time to put your money where your mouth
is, Admiral, so I'll just come right out and say it:
I want you to head the program, Admiral. You
are going to be the military liaison to the
Executive Committee on
Terrorism."
  Hardcastle could have fallen out of his chair in
surprise. He gasped, "Excuse me, sir ..
. ?"
  "I've got no other choice," the President
drawled simply, sounding a bit defeated.
"Cazaux's out there.judge Wilkes is closing
in on him, but until she nails him, we've got
to act decisively. My own Cabinet is
divided on the subject. I need the best in the
business tci head this thing, and as much as I hate
to admit it, you're the best candidate. What'd you
say, Admiral? You want in?" Hardcastle
glanced quickly at Scheer, Mersky, Lowed, and
Wilkes: all but Wilkes stared straight ahead,
emotionless. Only Wilkes seemed angry enough
to spit bullets. "I need your answer, Ian.
This can't wait any longer.
  I need you to get together with Dr. Scheer and get the
hardware moving into place."
  "Then I'm your man, Mr. President,"
Hardcastle said. "I'll start immediately."
  "Good answer," the President said, relieved,
hoping he could get the hell out of there. "I'll
announce it at this afternoon's press conference.
You'll be under Mike Lifter, title of
Special Assistant to the President for National
Security. However, I'd still like all of you
to report to Deputy Attorney General Lowed
on all antiterrorist stuff--let her talk to me
about our responses. You'll get commensurate
three-star pay, standard nondisclosure agreement,
you know the drill.
  Happy to have you aboard, Admiral. I'll let
you, Mike, and Don Scheer get at it. Good
luck."
  With that, Hardcastle had been dismissed. He
rose, led his staff out with him, and was joined outside
the Oval Office by National Security Advisor
Michael Lifter and a military aide.
  "We've set up a staff meeting at the
Pentagon," Lifter said.
  He was a tall, thin, severe-looking man with
small, dark, nervous eyes and a high forehead that
made him look sinister and secretive.
  "Secretary Scheer will meet us there along with the
Chairman. I'm sure they'll have a video
conference set up with General Lawson of
A-COM."
  The Chairman, Hardcastle knew, was
the popular (at least with the media, the military, and the
public--less so with the President and the Cabinet)
and powerful Chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff,
Army General Philip T. Freeman. Army
General Thomas Lawson was CINCACOM, Commander
in Chief, U.s. Atlantic Command, the major
military c "lower forty-eight" states.
Hardcastle did not know Lawson; he would have chosen
Air Force General Charles Skye instead--
perfect name for an Air Force four-star general and
former Thunderbirds demonstration-team solo pilot--
who was commander of U.s. Space Command and
automatically "triple-hatted" as commander of the
U.s. Aerospace Defense Command and the joint
U.s.-Canadian North American Air
Defense Command. But it was the President's call.
"We can take my car .. ."
  "Sir, if you don't mind, we'll follow you
over," Deborah Harley suddenly interjected.
  Lifter looked a bit puzzled. He glanced
at Harley, dismissed her .
  . l with an impassive blink of his snakelike
eyes, then back at Hardcastle: "I have some
important matters to go over with you, Admiral."
  "We'll meet you over there in the
Chairman's office, Mr. Lifter," Harley
said.
  There was no ignoring her this time. Lifter nodded,
swallowed, muttered a curt "Very well. One
hour. The secretary has your toll passes and
plates."
  As they collected their government plates and
toll plaza passes from the White House
Operations secretary and exited the White House,
Hardcastle said, "Miss Harley, what in the
hell was that about? And what in blazes did that note
say?"
  "It said, Admiral, that you were being set up, and
they executed it perfectly," Harley said. "You
didn't see it coming?"
  "See what coming?" Sheehan asked.
  "How about you, Colonel Vincenti?" Harley
asked. "What did you see?"
  "I saw "good cop, bad cop," was Vincenti
said. "Hate to say it, Admiral, but they played
you like a fiddle."
  "Did you really think it was a good idea to head this
air defense task force, Admiral?" Harley
asked. "May I ask why you agreed to do it?"
  "Because I can help with this situation,"
Hardcastle replied.
  His mind's eye was furiously replaying the
sequence of events in his head, and the more he recalled,
the worse he realized he looked.
  "Damn it, I can help with this situation. I can
directly implement my plan."
  "Admiral, your plan has merit," Harley
said, "but you're not part of this Administration. You
won't be allowed to implement your program the way
you want--you're an assistant to the National
Security Advisor, and Lifter's only an
adviser, not in the military chain of command.
  Furthermore, you won't be permitted to speak to the
press or the public, including the Project
2000 Task Force. Under the terms of the White
House Non-Disclosure Agreement, the Chief of
Staff, through the director of White House
communications, tells you to whom you can and cannot give
statements. If you bust their guidelines--and I
guarantee, if they want you to bust the rules, you
will--they can throw you in prison. They've done it many
times in the past. While you're stuffing some
congressman's newsletters in minimum security,
they'll roast your reputation so badly you'll be
lucky to be allowed to lead a Cub Scout
pack anywhere near Washington. Minority Leader
Wescott, Senator Heyerdahl, even former
Vice President Martindale can't help you then.
  You've been very effectively squelched,
Admiral Hardcastle, and you did it to yourself.
  Looks like you just canceled all your TV
appearances for a while."
  Harley shrugged, giving him a cheerful but tired
smile. "Don't feel bad, Admiral. The
President is very good at flimflamming someone--so
good, he does it to himself and his wife all the time."
  Hardcastle was tight-lipped and scowling as he
emerged from the White House, but just as their car was
driven over to them at the entrance to the West Wing, he
turned to Harley and said, "I may have been parked
by the President, Miss Harley, but they still
appointed me Special Assistant to the National
Security Advisor. I want to test the
boundaries of that office, and you're going to help me do
it."
  Deborah Harley's shoulders quivered and her
eyes brightened in anticipation for a moment, but then her
expression turned downcast.
  "I'm sorry, Admiral, but I've got a
job--"
  "I don't know exactly in what capacity you
serve Kevin Martindale, Miss Harley, but one
thing's for sure--I've got a toe in the White
House right now. I think you would serve the Vice
President and the Project 2000 Task Force
better if you were with me instead of spying on
Martindale's political enemies--isn't that
what you do, Miss Harley?"
  Harley blushed--something Hardcastle never thought
he'd see her do. "I don't think it's
relevant to discuss--"
  "What's wrong, Miss Harley?
  Don't you think you can pass the White House
security check?"
  "Admiral, I don't think that'll be a
problem," Harley said. "I know precisely what
my White House security file says--I
designed it.
  In fact, I've seen the White House's
security report on you. I'll even show it to you
later on."
  Hardcastle nodded--he could tell by her confident
half-smile and steady gaze that she was telling the
truth. This woman was much more than a simple
executive assistant--she was obviously
Martindale's chief troubleshooter, an invisible
insider able to pass through the inner sanctums of the
current Administration with apparent ease--
definitely not someone to piss off. "Find anything
interesting to you, Miss Harley?"
  She laughed, pointed a finger accusingly at
Hardcastle, and replied, "All I can say is,
Admiral, that if you plan on doing only half the
things to Henri Cazaux that you did to the Haitian,
Bahamian, and Colombian governments while you
were with the Hammerheads, Cazaux is in big, big
trouble."
  Fllon Naval Air Station, Nevada Three
Days Later Before any aircraft carrier air wing
begins a cruise, its crews must certify to the
carrier air group commander that they are fully
qualified and ready to perform their assigned duties.
For Navy and Marine Corps strike units in the
western half of the United States, that means a
trip to Navy Fallon in northern Nevada for a
very intensive two-month training and evaluation course
on aerial gunnery, bombardment, and missile
tactics. With thousands of square miles of ranges
spread out over three counties, mostly desolate
hills and dry lake beds, hundreds of
men (and now women) per year streak over the high
desert and mountains, line up on plywood tanks
or airfields scratched into the hard-baked earth
by bulldozers, and drop thousands of tons of live
bombs, rockets, missiles, and cannon rounds.
  The ranges are also used for operational evaluations
of new weapons about to be deployed for the first time.
Because of its very isolated location, Navy Fallon
is also one of the country's largest ordnance depots,
from which thousands of tons of weapons and explosives
are stored, distributed, repaired, refurbished,
dismantled, and disposed.
  For aircrew members, the eight-week TDY
to Navy Fallon is a mixed blessing. Although the
base facilities are first-rate, the surrounding
town is so isolated and small that, apart from the
temptation to visit one of the many legal brothels
nearby, there was little to do in Fallon for relaxation or
enjoyment. But it was a good opportunity to prepare
oneself for a long deployment at sea, where the
facilities and chances for rest and relaxation were even
less available, and it was definitely some of the best
flying around. Crew members actually looked forward
to Fallon's open skies, big ranges, plenty
of live ordnance, and the chance to show the brass
what you can do with the Navy's most modern warplanes.
  It was also a weapons smorgasbord for arms
dealers and smugglers, if you had the money and the right
connections.
  After a flight into Fallon Municipal
Airport, five miles northwest of the Naval
Air Station, Gregory Townsend, Henri
Cazaux's third-in-command and chief of plans and
operations, signed a lease for a large hangar, the
flight crew fueled and prepared their aged de
Havilland C-8 Buffalo cargo plane for
departure, and Ysidro and his crew made
preparations for their meeting.
  Just after midnight, they heard the sounds of heavy
truck engines approaching outside the hangar. After
an hour-long wait, undoubtedly so t surround the
hangar, Ysidro and Townsend were met by several men
in a Navy Humvee. Six men emerged from the big
vehicle, all armed to the teeth with M-16
rifles and military-issue Beretta automatic
pistols. Two men wore Navy utility
uniforms; three others were in civilian clothes but
had military haircuts; and one, who stepped out of the
front passenger side of the Humvee and looked like
the leader, looked like a civilian all the
way. While two men stood before Ysidro and
Townsend, armed with M-16 rifles, two of the
gunmen herded the smuggler's crewmen inside the de
Havilland to watch them, and two others stationed themselves
at the front and rear hangar doors.
  Both Townsend and Ysidro were frisked, and their
weapons taken from them. Ysidro was heavily armed with
an automatic submachine gun, two pistols, and
two knives--those were taken from him--but he was allowed
to keep the aluminum briefcase he carried, after a
careful inspection.
  Inside the suitcase was U.s. cash in
twenties, fifties, and one hundreds, along with
Swiss and German bearer bonds. "They brought the
cash," the soldier reported to the civilian after
checking the case for hidden weapons.
  "We've been doing business a long time,"
Townsend said to the leader.
  "We want it to stay that way. We'll play
fair with you in return for good service. Cash for
quality goods."
  But even then, reassuring words did not tone down
the rough search he had to undergo. Townsend carried
only one gun, a Colt .45 auto pistol,
along with a Tekna three-cell flashlight
--which was carefully inspected, even to the point of
unscrewing the butt cap and sliding out the batteries
--and, to the gunmen's surprise, a sixteen-inch
Bowie knife in a sheath strapped to his back,
handle down so he could draw it easily. After showing
the huge knife to the others, the gunmen rasped, "Like
fucking' Crocodile Dundee. What's this for,
bobbie?"
  "Skinning snakes," Townsend spat back.
"Be careful with it. It has special sentimental
value."
  "From your mother, I suppose."
  "My father beat up and killed my mother when I was a
child," Townsend said in a conversational,
matter-of-fact tone. "I took that knife from
Mohammar Kaddafi's bedroom during a botched
S.a.s assassination mission.
  Three of my best soldiers were killed on that
raid, and the bastard wasn't even home." He
leaned forward, and in a low, ghostly tone of voice,
said, "I was so upset I resigned from the
S.a.s, returned home, got drunk, and
sliced off my father's head with that knife."
  The soldier didn't know if Townsend was telling
the truth, but one look at his
crocodile's smile and he decided not to make
any more smart comments. He placed all the weapons
and gear inside the front seat of the Humvee and
backed away without further comment.
  Relieved of his weapons and gear, Townsend
took a moment to carefully study the men around him.
They all looked like professional soldiers, although
he noticed how quickly and easily they relaxed when
Ysidro's and his own weapons were confiscated. If
the gunmen knew anything about unarmed combat, they would
know that a professional soldier never relaxed, even
with ten-versus-two odds. Two of the Navy men in
uniform were known to Ysidro and Townsend, but the rest
were strangers, which Townsend didn't like.
  "Who the hell are these blokes? We agreed
only us four at the setup."
  "That was before you asked for the heavy stuff,
Townsend."
  Crenshaw laughed. "Our first deal was easy--six
thousand pounds of waste ammonium nitrate and
perchlorate. Hell, the Navy dumps at least
six thousand pounds a day of waste chemicals and
explosives into open pits out here--drink the well
water around here for a couple years and if you fart you
blow your ass off."
  "All right, let's get on with it," Townsend
said impatiently.
  "Perchlorate and hydrazine we can get anywhere
--the state of Nevada practically gives the shit
away. You got the rest of it?"
  "What I'm telling you, bobbie, is that the
prize is gonna be worth the price." Crenshaw
turned to the guard at the front hangar door, who
made a signal with a flashlight. Soon two
five-ton utility trucks, painted Navy gray
with desert-camouflaged canvas tops over the cargo
beds, rumbled toward them. When the trucks pulled
up to the group and the hangar doors were closed,
Crenshaw stepped behind the first truck and flipped open
the canvas cover on the back, and Townsend jumped
up on the back of the truck to examine the contents.
There were eight 55-gallon drums marked HIGH
EXPLOSIVE, and four drums marked FLAMMABLE.
  He found an opener tool in the bed of the truck and
opened each screw opening of the first eight drums, and the
unmistakable acidic-aluminum-blood smell of
aluminum perchlorate filtered out. He inspected
the last four drums, this time mixing two ounces of the
liquid in the second barrel with a pinch of the powder in
the first set of barrels in a small
plastic tube. After swirling the mixture in the
tube, he carefully held a lighter to the opening of the
tube, and a long cylinder of blue fire shot out with a
loud pop.
  He repeated the test with all four barrels,
satisfied that he had the good stuff. Hydrazine and
aluminum perchlorate were two highly explosive
compounds all by themselves, but mixed together they formed a
thick, unstable vapor that, mixed with oxygen and
ignited with a spark, created a huge, violent
explosion hundreds of times more powerful than
gasoline or TNT. "Drove all this way across
the desert at night with simple nylon ropes
securing these barrels, did you?" Townsend asked as
he stepped out of the truck.
  He knew that there was enough aluminum perchlorate and
hydrazine in that truck to once and for all bring down
one of the World Trade Center towers. "You're either
braver or stupider than I suspected."
  "Not as stupid as you two are, Townsend,"
Crenshaw said, motioning with glee at the twin-engined
de Havilland cargo plane.
  "We got here in one piece. Let's see how
brave you two are when you gotta fly outta here in
that piece-of-shit cargo plane. You opened
the drums. One wisp of hydrazine lingering in the
air or near those engines when you start them upoof: You
blow the hydrazine, scatter the perchlorate, make
an even bigger boom." Townsend had to nod at that
last remark--yes, it was going to be tricky going.
  "These are the real prizes, gents." Crenshaw
stepped over to the second truck and opened a
canvas flap, revealing several different oddly
shaped weapons. There were eight devices in all,
all about four to five feet long. "Took some time
collecting these bad boys," he said proudly.
"All Gulf War veterans, all fully
operational.
  Three Mark-77 napalm canisters, three
C.b.u-55 fuel-air explosives units,
and six C.b.u-59 cluster bombs units.
Best stuff in the arsenal."
  "Very good," Townsend said. It was indeed an
impressive haul--perhaps too impressive. The
Navy didn't let ordnance like this just lie around.
Crenshaw was a top munitions maintenance man, but
even he had to carefully account for stuff like this. "My
flashlight, if you please?"
  "Suit yourself," Crenshaw said, motioning to one of his
men, who handed Townsend his flashlight.
Townsend jumped up onto the truck, placed the
flashlight in his teeth, and carefully examined each
weapon.
  The Mark-77 was little more than a large
blunt-ended gas tank filled with chemical beads,
which Townsend checked. Once filled with gasoline,
the beads dissolved to form napalm, which could blanket
nearly an entire city block with a sheet of fire.
The C.b.u-59, with the words CONTENTS: LIVE
LOADED B.l.u-77/But stellciled on the
sides, were metal containers that, when released and
opened by a barometric nose fuze, scattered
seven hundred APAM (anti-personnel,
antimaterial) bomblets across a
four-hundred-foot oval swath. The one-pound
baseball-sized bomblets were filled with steel
dartlike projectiles that could mutilate anything
--or anyone--in their path.
  Some of the bomblets exploded on contact, while
others had timer fuzes which would detonate them
minutes or even hours later.
  The real prize was the fuel-air explosives
bombs. The C.b.u-55 canisters were simply
very large fuel tanks that would be filled with the
hydrazine and aluminum perchlorate, the
stuff in the other truck.
  Behind the endplate of each canister was a dispenser
holding three B.l.u-73 bomblets. When
released, the two compounds would mix, the canister would
automatically spray the target area with a large
cloud of explosive gas, and then the
parachute-retarded bomblets would ignite the gas--the
resulting explosion would be equivalent to ten the
C.b.u-55 was the most powerful non-nuclear
bomb in the American military arsenal. In
limited service in the Vietnam War because the dense
foliage dissipated its explosive effects, it was
the weapon of choice in the wide-open deserts of
Iraq. Officially it was used only to "clear
minefields," but it was used with terrible effect on
large masses of Iraqi troops, squashing and
incinerating anything within five hundred yards of ground
zero. Its devastating killing power was considered
unethical, almost on a par with chemical,
biological, or nuclear weapons.
  "Very impressive, Crenshaw," Townsend said,
swinging the flashlight beam into Crenshaw's face, then
snapping it off.
  Acquiring the fuel-air explosive weapons
would make Cazaux very happy indeed.
  "I hope bearer bonds are acceptable. They have
been in the past."
  "As long as you got my share in U.s.
greenbacks in there, I don't care about that shit,"
Crenshaw said. "The officers want the fuckin'
Kraut bonds, not me. Now get the fuck down
and--" Distracted by the flashlight beam, Crenshaw
didn't see what Townsend was doing until he had
nearly finished doing it--he had unscrewed the butt
cap off the three-cell flashlight, removed the
two rear D-cell batteries, screwed them
together, and aimed it at him.
  Before Crenshaw could raise his submachine gun,
Townsend pressed a button, andwitha barely audible
pufff a two-inch razoredged arrow pierced his chest,
sliced through his heart, deflected off a rib, and
ricocheted around inside his body like a pinball,
slicing up blood vessels and lungs in the blink
of an eye. He turned and shot darts into the first
truck driver and two more gunmen standing nearby, then
leaped off the truck. Everything had happened so fast
that the driver of the first truck was still idly sitting behind
his wheel when Townsend ran over to his door, put
the weapon to his left temple, and fired a bolt
into his brain.
  Ysidro disdained the use of any sort of fancy
james Bond-type weapons.
  As soon as he saw Crenshaw go down,
Ysidro was on the move. He bashed the heavy
metal briefcase into the soldier nearest him,
grabbed his gun as he went down, and started pumping
bullets at anything that moved, remembering not
to shoot toward the explosives-laden trucks and
counting on Townsend to kill anyone near him. The
massacre of the three soldiers near him was complete
in a matter of seconds. The guard at the rear of the
hangar took off running as soon as he saw
Ysidro sprinting after him, but luckily the back
door to the hangar was locked. Ysidro dropped him
with a bullet in his chest from fifty feet, then stepped
up to him and put a second bullet in his brain.
  "Jesus Christ, Ysidro, one bullet
ricocheting in the wrong direction could've cooked us
all," Townsend said.
  "Hey, we're already fuckin' stupid for accepting
this assignment in the first place--this is a job for the
grunts," Ysidro said.
  "I'm a guerrilla, not a trash-hauler, and if
we blow, we blow.
  Let's just get the hell out of here.
Linnares, get your ass out here and load these
explosives nowff"...Johann Linnares, the leader
of the flight crew, stepped out of the de Havilland
along with his crew--they had killed the two guards
who tried to lock them up in the plane as soon as
they were alone.
  "I still don't fucking understand why we had to kill
these guys this time around," Ysidro said as the crews
began to load the explosives and weapons aboard the
cargo plane. "These guys were swaggering assholes,
but they were generally straight with us, and we been trading
with them for a long time. What gives?"
  "Things are going to get too hot around the
clubhouse once we begin the next series of
attacks," Townsend said. "We paid these blokes
pretty well, but when the feds see what we're about
to do, the heat gets turned up and the reward money for
our heads will undoubtedly be more than assholes like
Crenshaw could resist. I think Henri was correct
--once these attacks are completed, it'll be time
to open up some new sources of hardware. By then,
we'll be the top dogs in the terror-for-hire
game. We'll have the world's pick of the litter."
  "If we survive," Ysidro said. "Henri
really is fuckin' possessed, and I think
we're gonna need the Devil's help to get out of
this a1I've."
  Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport,
Sunrise Two Days Later If you had to go
to war, had to deploy at a moment's notice, had
to hump all night to get your unit set up and
operational as fast as humanly possible, there were
worse places to do it than Dallas, Texas.
  Lieutenant Colonel Valerie Witt,
U.s. Army, emerged onto the catwalk with a cup
of coffee just as the first rays of sunlight peeked
over the horizon, putting the skyline of the city of
Dallas in stark profile.
  The dawn was hazy and cool, but she had ditched
her field jacket back in her new office
downstairs hours ago. She allowed herself the
luxury of drinking in the sunrise, letting the
brilliant yellow sun charge her batteries.
For a moment, she was back in her hometown of
Ogunquit, Maine, watching the sunrise from her
parents' home on the coast, or on the beach at
Treasure Coy in the Bahamas on her
honeymoon.
  Beautiful. Just beautiful .. .
  But as she scanned the horizon an
unusual sight brought her back to reality very quickly
--and Avenger FAADS (forward Area Air
Defense System) unit parked a few hundred
yards beyond the approach end of runway 35 Right.
It was hardly more than a speck out there, but its two
box launchers aimed skyward, each containing four
Stinger heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles, could
be seen. This was not her honeymoon. This was not home.
Yes, it was Fort Worth, Texas, but it was also
war.
  Valerie Witt was the commander of Third
Battalion, 43rd Regiment, and was the senior
air defense artillery battalion commander
deployed to the defense of Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport. Her communications headquarters were on the
second level of Dallas-Fort Worth's
multistory control tower, where she had a clear
view of all her air defense units at DFW;
but her weapon command center, the AN/MSQ-16
M.i.c.c (master Information and Coordination
Central), a large steel green-painted box
crammed full of radar sets, radios, and air
conditioners (for the electronics, not the humans who
work inside), had been hoisted up onto the roof of
terminal 2Will of Dallas-Fort Worth.
Beside the M.i.c.c was the AMG, or Antenna
Mast Group, a truck carrying two U.h.f
antennas that linked Witt's M.i.c.c with all
the air defense units surrounding Dallas-Fort
Worth.
  Because DFW was one of the busiest and most
important airports in the United States, there
were a lot of air defense units deployed here
to try to stop Henri Cazaux if he tried
to attack here.
  Eleventh Brigade, from Fort Bliss, El
Paso, Texas, had deployed six of Witt's
Third Battalion Patriot missile
batteries in the area--two at Carswell Air
Force Base, west of Dallas-Fort Worth, two
at Naval Air Station Dallas to the south, and
two batteries at Fort Worth-Alliance
Airport, north of the city of Fort Worth. Each
battery had four Patriot missile launchers--
half the normal number, because so many airports in
the nation had to be covered--and each launcher contained
four missiles.
  In addition, there were four platoons of Hawk
medium-range surface-to-air missiles
spread out on the outskirts of
Dallas-Fort Worth, twelve launcher units
for a total of thirty-six Hawk missiles; and
eight Avenger units, stationed at each end of the four
runways kept active at DFW, for a total of
sixty-four short-range Stinger missiles.
  Patriot Communications Relay Groups
scattered all across Tarrant and Dallas counties
ensured tight coordination between the Patriot
batteries and Witt's battalion
M.i.c.c, which controlled all the Patriot,
Hawk, Avenger, and Stinger surface-to-air
missile sites surrounding Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport. In turn, Witt's command center was
tied directly into the overall Air Defense
Force Commander, an Air Force officer she did not
know, orbiting over El Dorado, Texas, in an
E-3Can Sentry AWACS (airborne
Warning and Control System) radar plane.
  Although Witt could launch any of the missiles
defending Dallas-Fort Worth, primary
responsibility of launching missiles at any
one of the major airports in the south central
United States--Dallas-Fort Worth,
Houston-Intercontinental, Houston-Hobby,
Memphis, Tulsa, Nashville, and
New Orleans--or directing any fighters on
intercepts, was in the Air Force officer's hands.
  Witt finished a walk around of the catwalk around
the control tower, checking the weather, checking the
airport, and catching a glimpse of all the
HAWK and Avenger units deployed around the huge
airport. Far to the south, she could see two
F-16 Fighting Falcon fighters leaping into the
sky from Naval Air Station Dallas, then peeling
away to the east with afterburners roaring. Air defense
units, fighters--this was something you'd expect to see
in Beirut, or Baghdad, or Tele Aviv--not
Texas. What was going on in this world when a single
terrorist could hold a nation hostage like this, force it
to restrict the rights of its own citizens in order
to defend itself Witt returned to her little headquarters
--consisting of several banks of radios, computers,
and radar repeater--just as the secure radio
crackled to life: "All Tiger units, all
Tiger units, stand by for a poll of the air defense
force."
  Witt reached over and picked up a telephone,
which was wired directly into her M.i.c.c van
down below: "Tiger 100, report."
  It looked huge from the outside, but the
Master Information and Coordination Central van was
barely big enough for three persons inside. The
Battalion Engagement Officer, Captain Jim
Connor, sat on the l radar scope, surrounded
by switchlights, indicators, and a keyboard; he was
responsible for making the decision on whether or not
any missile unit in the battalion would fire
on a hostile target, and for taking over as
Battalion Force Commander if communications between the
Air Defense Force Mission Commander on board the
AWACS radar plane were lost. The Battalion
Fire Unit Technician, Master Sergeant
Mike Pierini, sat on the right, with a virtually
identical radar setup as the Engagement Officer.
Pierini was responsible for identifying all targets
on radar and classifying them as friendly, hostile,
or unknown (if the crews aboard the AWACS
plane had not already done so), assisting the Engagement
Officer, and maintaining communications with the
battalion's missile units.
  Between them was a dot-matrix printer, and above that the
LED readouts and status displays of all the rounds
remaining of all the missile units under Witt's
command. Reading off the status display, Connor
responded: "Ma'am, Tiger 100 shows
all units in the green: Ninety-six Patriot,
thirty-six HAWK, and sixty-four Avenger
Stingers ready. All units acknowledging HOLD
FIRE command."
  "Very well, Tiger 100, out."
  Aboard the E-3Can Sentry AWACS
Radar Plane Orbiting Over El Dorado,
Texas Army Lieutenant Colonel Valerie
Witt might have been incensed to learn that the overall
Air Defense Force Mission Commander for the
south-central United States was about ten years
younger than she, had five years less time in the
military, and was only an Air Force major, but
that described William "Kid" Kestrel, the
Mission Crew Commander (Mcc) aboard Tiger
Nine-Zero, the E-3Can Sentry Airborne
Warning and Control System radar plane.
Kestrel was short, blue-eyed, fair-haired, and
slight, and he looked even younger than age
thirty-eight--he looked far younger than anybody
else on the twenty-two-person AWACS crew,
although he was probably the oldest.
  Kestrel was one of eleven Air Defense Force
Mission Commanders airborne at that moment aboard
E-3Can Sentry radar planes,
covering the entir over Elizabeth City, North
Carolina, Allentown, Pennsylvania, and
Indianapolis, Indiana, covering the northeast;
Gainesville, Florida, covering the southeast;
Des Moines, Iowa, covering the Midwest;
Cimmaron, New Mexico, and Billings,
Montana, covering the Rocky Mountain region;
Mormon Mesa, Nevada, and Porterville,
California, covering the southwest; and Lakeview,
Oregon, covering the northwest.
  Flying one-hundred-mile racetrack patterns
at twenty-nine thousand feet, the E-3Can
Sentry, with its powerful AN/APY-2 Overland
Downlook Radar mounted on a thirty-foot
saucer rotodome atop the converted Boeing 707
aircraft, could detect and track any aircraft
in flight for three hundred miles in all
directions.
  After one aerial refueling three hours ago,
Kestrel's crew had been on station now for eight
hours, with fcur more hours to go before another plane would
launch from Tinker Air Force Base in
Oklahoma City to take their place. Under
normal circumstances, this might be boring work.
  Air traffic had subsided to a
fraction of its normal levels after the government
ordered that all aircraft flying within the United
States had to take off and land at airports with
control towers, had to file an I.f.r
(instrument Flight Rules) flight plan, and had
to be under positive radar control at all times--
and of course, the prospect of having several tons of
high explosives dropped on your head inside an
airport terminal kept a lot of people from flying as
well.
  But a lot of civilian and commercial aircraft
that stayed on the ground were replaced by other
aircraft: military fighters, escorting
airliners all over the United States. The best
estimate said that over two hundred F-16
A.d.f and F-l fighters of the Air National
Guard's total inventory of three hundred air
defense fighters were airborne at any one time,
shadowing any aircraft, big or small, that
violated any of the new flight rules or did or
said something suspicious.
  Every airport in the United States with a
five-thousand-foot concrete runway and jet fuel
available probably had a fighter land there at one
time or another in the past twelve hours.
  On Major Kestrel's radar scope, it
appeared that he had every one of the military planes in
his airspace--and he needed them all, because it also
seemed that all the flakeoid pilots, bad
radios, garbled transmissions, incorrect
assumptions, and lost flight plans were rattling
around in his assigned sector. Last night, the first
full night of the new emergency flight rules, was
the worst--but now it was dawn and the wrong decisions,
rule violations, confusion, and just plain dumb-shit
moves still showed no signs of letting up.
  "All Tiger units, all Tiger units, this
is Tiger Control with a poll of the air defense
units," Kestrel began. Satellite
communications downlinks allowed him to speak with units
many miles away as if he were orbiting right over
them. "Tiger 100."
  "Tiger 100, all units in the green, all
units acknowledge HOLD FIRE command,"
Colonel Witt at Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport responded.
  "Tiger 200."
  "Tiger 200, all units in the green, all
units acknowledge HOLD FIRE," the
battalion commander at Houston-Hobby
International reported, which also secured
Houston-Intercontinental Airport. The poll
continued with all of Kestrel's assigned units at
New Orleans, Memphis, Little Rock,
Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Jackson, and
Springfield. Not all of these locations had
Patriot missiles stationed there, but all had at
least two Avenger-Stinger units and one HAWK
missile unit, all controlled by Kestrel in the
E-3Can AWACS.
  "Well, everybody's in place, and it looks like
we survived the night all in one piece,"
Major Bill Kestrel told Admiral Ian
Hardcastle and Lieutenant Colonel Also
Vincenti, as they observed the progress of the
emergency operation. Since Dallas-Fort Worth was
one of the busiest in the nation, and since Cazaux's
last attack in Memphis was not far away, it was a
logical target, and a lot of planning,
personnel, and hardware had gone into defending it. It
was the perfect place to watch how the system was
running--and the perfect place to watch potential
problems occur. "But I'm seeing signs of
pilots testing the system already."
  "What do you mean, Kid?" Hardcastle
asked.
  "It's a pilot thing, I believe," Kestrel
replied, giving veteran F-16 pilot
Vincenti a mischievous smile. "Airline
pilots need to be on time--their jobs depend on
it--so they stretch the rules, probe the boundaries
of the new authority. See, here's a good
example."
  Kestrel reduced the range on his scope to show
better detail.
  "This USAIR flight from Little Rock is a
757 and he thinks he owns the sky.
  He's an hour late, but so what?--everybody in
the system is at least an hour late. But he's
real cranky. First, he won't stay on the Blue
Ridge Four Arrival--he wants vectors
to runway 35 Left final. We closed 36
Right and 35 Left, the runways closest to the
terminal, so naturally that's what this bozo asks for.
A.t.c says no, we want him out to GACHO
intersection, fifteen miles out, and we want him
on the I.l.s
  glideslope.
  "Now he's really pissed, and he's making
mistakes. He's screaming onto the
localizer, going like a bat out of hell. He's
cutting the corner, see?--he's never going to reach
GACHO intersection. He's still going 250 knots,
which is legal but not very smart since he's got about a
ninety-degree turn coming up in a few seconds.
  Ninety-nine-percent chance he's a good guy, but
he's doing bad-guy stuff. I got no choice."
He hit the intercom button to his Senior
Director--although the Senior Director was
sitting right beside him, the intercom call ale
"Active scramble on target ID
  uniform-seven-one-one-three, two F-16's.
Continue the hold-fire on all batteries but
tell Tiger 124, 125, 146, and 148 that
ID number U7113 is a possible hostile.
Tell Tiger 112 that a 757 will be flying real
close from the east. I want all units to hold
fire--don't get excited to see that idiot
barreling in."
  Kestrel pointed to his scope. "See that?
He's blown through the localizer inbound course, still
going like a bat out of hell--good thing he's not running
up someone's ass. Now watch." Kestrel pointed
to a spot at the top of his scope, and sure enough,
a white rectangle with the words EMER
appeared and began blinking. "They all do that--they
argue, get excited, make a mistake, then
realize what they've done and squawk emergency.
Look, he's practically into Naval Air Station
Dallas' airspace, overflying the Patriot
missile site.
  Jesus .. .
  "So what can you do?" Hardcastle asked.
  "I've got no choice, Admiral,"
Kestrel said. "But it ain't gonna fly.
  Listen .. ." He pressed another button on
his communications panel: "Dallas East
Approach, this is Tiger Control, that USAIR
Flight, ID U7113, is in violation. I
need him kicked out to Scurry VOR until we can
get a fighter visual ID .. . affirmative,
U7113
  .. .
  deviated more than two miles off assigned
course within twenty miles of Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport." Hardcastle and Vincenti could hear the
approach controller, and he did not sound happy at
all. "I've got two F-16's airborne from
N.a.s Dallas now, and I'll declare him
MARSA with the USAIR flight at this time
.. . I know he's declared an emergency,
Approach, but he's in violation, he still hasn't
gotten back on the localizer .. . what's your
controller number, ma'am?
  .. .
  fine, my commander will call your supervisor.
Request you advise that flight that he is an air
defense item of interest and that if he violates the
flight parameters again, he will be fired upon without
further warning .. . yes, damn it, I'm serious.
Tiger out."
  He clicked over to another channel with an
angry stab on the button: "All Tiger
units, this is Tiger control, ID U7113
has declared an emergency and is being cleared to land on
runway 31 Right at Dallas-Fort Worth.
Interceptor units are airborne from N.a.s
Dallas.
  At DIWR intersection, repeat, at DIWR
intersection, all Hawk and Avenger batteries are
released tight, repeat, at five miles out, all
Hawk and Avenger batteries are released tight."
He switched channels again, this time to the VHF
GUARD emergency frequency, which was linked to a
repeater station near Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport: "Attention all aircraft, attention
all aircraft, this is the United States Air
Force airborne defense controller Tiger, we have
an air defense item of interest landing on runway
31 Right, Dallas-Fort Worth Airport,
warning, do not violate your flight clearances or you
may be fired upon in the interest of national security.
Repeat, all aircraft, do not violate your
flight clearances or you may be fired upon without
warning. Tiger out."
  Kestrel turned to Hardcastle and Vincenti and
said, "Okay, gents, I've just given the order for the
short-range air defense systems to open fire
on the inbound 757 if he strays more than a mile
off course within five miles from the runway, more than
a half-mile within two miles of the extended
runway centerline, or more than one thousand feet
toward the terminals within one mile. Meanwhile, the
F-16's will try to join on him or orbit
nearby until he's turned off the runway. This
jet jockey is screwing up by the numbers, and now
he--and his passengers, don't forget--are looking
down the barrel of about twenty-four missiles and
two F-16 fighters with missiles and guns of
their own. Just plain stupid. He can die
at any time between now and about two minutes from now, and
you'll have a major disaster on your hands."
  It was a very tense wait as they watched the final
two minutes of the approach. The F-16 fighter
joined on the 757 when the airliner was about two
miles from touchdown: "Tiger Control, Tango
X-Ray311 flight, target looks clean, no
open panels or devices, wheels are down. I
see passengers in the windows. Looking good .. ."
There was a short pause as the F-l 6 pilot
configured his own plane for landing.
  He would fly to the right and above the airliner as long
as he could, away from the Hawk and Avenger missile
units arrayed between the runway and the east terminals of
Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.
  "Control, com311 going around."
  "Control, this is Tiger-148, I've got a
visual on the target," reported one of the Avenger
ground units, stationed at the approach end of the
runway and tracking the airliner all the way on a
telescopic infrared camera. "He's looking
good, wheels and flaps down .. .
  Control, the target has touched down .. .
Control, I see thrust reversers and spoilers,
looks like a normal rollout .. .
  Control, he's turned off onto the high-speed
taxiway one-north, moving onto taxiway 21
.. . Control, security units are on the scene.
  Request permission to disengage. Over."
  "Attention all Tiger units, this is Tiger
Control, all batteries hold fire, repeat,
all batteries hold fire. Target ID
U7113 is down.
  Tiger Control clear." Kestrel slid off his
headset after telling his Senior Director he was
going off the air for a few minutes, then motioned
to Hardcastle and vincenti toward the back of the
AWACS plane: "I gotta take a break."
  Hardcastle and vincenti followed Kestrel to the
galley, where Kestrel hit the lavatory and stayed
in there for what seemed like a long time.
  When he finally emerged, his face still damp from the
water he had splashed on it, he slugged down a
couple of antacid tablets with a grimace. "It's
gonna be a long day, I can see that now," he
muttered.
  "Very good work over there, Major," Hardcastle
offered.
  "That routine happens about twice, maybe three
times an hour, gents," Kestrel said
to Hardcastle and vincenti, as if he hadn't heard
Hardcastle's compliment. The strain really showed.
"The pilots declare an emergency, and all our
rules go out the window. All the air traffic
controllers want to do is get these guys on the
ground, so they clear them for landing before we can check them
out. It's wearing my crews down real fast, and this
is only the second day."
  "But aren't your crews accustomed to this?"
Hardcastle asked.
  "You've got some Desert Storm veterans on
your crew. In the Middle East you were flying thousands
of sorties a day, controlling hundreds of
aircraft."
  "In Desert Storm, and in most controller
situations, most of the targets on the SCOPE are
good guys, and we're on the lookout for the bad
guys," Kestrel explained. "Here, evey target
is a potential bad guy, right up until he
turns off the runway after landing.
  Furthermore, all of our "bad guys" are
flying right toward the spot that we're assigned
to defend--and we have to let them! That's pretty
unheardof in the AWACS game. We're used
to playing on a much bigger scale--here,
most of the real tense action occurs close to the ground
and close to the defended spot, where if something goes
wrong we don't have a lot of time to react--"
  "Nothing personal, Major, but I'd rather burn
out a few AWACS crews rather than see Cazaux
bomb another terminal," vincenti said. "Air
defense is a shitty game, but we gotta play
it."
  "I hear you, Also, and I can't argue with that--it's
our job and we're going to do it," Kestrel said.
"I'm getting an ulcer because some flyboy wants
to land five minutes earlier than his buddies-fine.
  But I wonder if that pilot realizes that if he
does so much as wag his wings toward the terminal when
he's on final approach, sirs, one of those kids
riding in the Avengers is going to pull the trigger and
send two Stinger missiles into an airliner full of
civilians. It's something you guys from Washington
are going to have to deal with if this thing drags on and a
mistake happens. Either we turn up the heat and
catch this Cazaux bastard right away, or you'll have
to tighten up the rules a bit more, before we start
flaming a lot of innocent Americans."
  "We can't do much about the tactical situation,"
Hardcastle said.
  "We can nail the pilots busting the rules or
declaring an emergency in order to circumvent the
rules and get on the ground faster, but for the time being
I don't think Washington is going to want to hear
any more plans to restrict air traffic any more
than what we're doing right now.
  I'd like to see the FBI take off the kid
gloves and beat the bushes a little harder for
Cazaux, but I believe they're working as hard as
they--"
  "Major Kestrel, another target just busted the
arrival routing," one of the surveillance
technicians said as he approached the group.
  "SD wants you back up on headsets."
  "On my way," Kestrel said, popping one more
antacid before leading Hardcastle and Vincenti back
to the Weapons Controller section of the AWACS
radar plane. He reached his seat, slapped on his
headset, and turned to his Senior Director:
"What do we have, Todd?"
  "A private 727 on the Acton Two
Arrival with a lost flight plan," the Senior
Director reported. "Departed San Antonio
International about a hour ago--that's been confirmed
by the tower crew."
  "Can't let him into DFW WITHOUT a flight
plan," Kestrel said emphatically. "Why the
hell didn't A.t.c kick him out and tell him
to return to San Antonio?" He knew that was a
rhetorical question that his Senior Director couldn't
answer, so he flipped his communications panel
to his discrete Dallas Approach channel:
"Dallas West Approach, Tiger Airborne
Control."
  "This is Dallas West Regional, go
ahead."
  "Yes, sir, that private 727, radar ID
3st90, doesn't have a flight plan for
Dallas-Fort Worth International. Landing is
prohibited without an I.f.r flight plan
coordinated through me. Landing at DFW, Love,
or Alliance is not authorized."
  "Stand by one, I'll give you to my military
operations desk."
  Kestrel was put on hold for about a minute, and
then he had to explain the situation all over again to the
Dallas TRACON military operations officer
again, who responded, "We've been losing lots of
flight plans, Tiger. The system is jammed.
We'd lose five percent of the flight
plans on a normal full-up day--now, with every
plane in the sky filing a flight plan, we can't
keep up."
  "I understand your problem, Approach, but let's
deal with this guy first," Kestrel interjected.
"Reroute the guy either to one of the satellite
airports or back to San Antonio--he can't
land at DFW, Alliance, or Love."
  "I thought the procedure stated that you military
types would visually identify any aircraft that was
not on a flight plan or that was not following his
clearance."
  "That's correct," Kestrel said. "If he
tries to fly toward the primary airport in
Class B airspace without a flight plan,
without a clearance, or if he's not following his
clearance, he will be intercepted."
  "So why not just intercept this guy, visually check
him out, then make the decision to let him land?"
  "Sir, that's not the purpose of the procedure,"
Kestrel said patiently.
  "The purpose of an intercept is not to visually
identify him, but to shoot him down as far away from the
primary airport and from populated areas, if that
becomes necessary."
  "Why do you want to shoot him down, for God's
sake?"
  "I don't 7IJANT to shoot him down,"
Kestrel said. He looked at Hardcastle, who was
listening in on the conversation with an expression of
absolute disbelief on his face. "Sir, the
aircraft does not have a proper flight plan in the
system--that's a violation, and it makes him a
suspected terrorist. He's approaching a
high-volume primary airport in Class B
airspace, one of the airports designated as a
high value asset Acton Two arrival, but I
have him three miles east of HULEN intersection and
one thousand feet low."
  "Is he on a vector?"
  "I don't know, sir," Kestrel said, ready
to tear his hair out in utter frustration. He turned
to his Senior Director, who nodded his head
"yes" at the question. "My senior director says
he is on a vector, Approach, but that doesn't
matter. All I know is that he doesn't have a
flight plan, he's not on a published standard
arrival routing, and he's not on a published
approach procedure. I'm asking you to divert him
to a satellite airport or back to his
departure airport."
  . There was a slight but maddening pause, then:
"Okay, Tiger Control, I .. . sir, it's
really busy here, and I'm not quite sure what the
problem is .. ."
  "I'm trying to explain it to you, if you'd just listen
to me."
  "I didn't catch that last, Tiger," the
supervisor said in a detached, bureaucratic way
that told everyone listening in that he heard what
Kestrel said but was ignoring him. "If you think
you've got a terrorist situation, perhaps I'd
better turn you over to the chief of security
operations or the deputy director. Stand by one."
  Hardcastle keyed his headset mike button:
"Dallas Approach, this is Admiral Ian
Hardcastle speaking. I'm the Special
Assistant to the President for Air Defense
Operations." Kestrel was shaking his head at
Hardcastle, silently asking him not to get into it, but
it was too late now. "I'm in charge of this
antiterrorist operation. I'm ordering you to divert this
suspect aircraft away from Dallas-Fort
Worth Airport until his identity can be
verified. Do you understand me?"
  "Who is this again?"
  "This is Admiral Hardcastle, Special
Assistant to the President."
  "President of .. . the United States? Is
that what you're saying?"
  Hardcastle's back stiffened angrily, his cheek
muscles quivering.
  He grasped his headset mike, pulled it
closer to his lips, and shouted, "The name5's
Hardcastle, sir. I am the man who is going
to make your life miserable if you don't comply with
my instructions."
  "Ah .. . right--Mister hardcastle." It was
obvious by the controller's voice that he wasn't
accustomed to being threatened and he was done talking.
"I'm turning you over to the deputy facility
director-you can make your requests and your threats
to him. Stand by, please." And the line went dead,
replaced by soothing mood music.
  "Damn it, he cut us off," Kestrel said.
On intercom, he said to his senior director,
"Todd, divert Tango X-Ray-311 for an
ID intercept on target ID 3st90.
Classify that target ID as "unknown."
  Transmit an alert to Tiger units
112, 113, 131, and 132, but send a HOLD
FIRE and have all units acknowledge." Kestrel
turned to Hardcastle and said bitterly, "I've
got a bad feeling about this one, Admiral.
  The shit's starting to pile up real fast."
  Air Defense Battalion Mater Information and
Coordination Central, DFW Airport
Lieutenant Colonel Valerie Witt was
breathing heavily from the run from the control tower to the
access elevator that took her up to the roof of
terminal 2W. This was where her Master Information and
Coordination Central van was set up, as she
hurried into the van and stood between the battalion
engagement officer, Captain Jim Connor, and the
battalion fire unit technician, Master
Sergeant Mike Pierini, in the front of the cab.
"What do we got, Jim?"
  "Tiger Control just made this guy an
UNKNOWN," Connor replied, tapping the eraser
point of his pencil on his radar screen.
  "No flight plan on him. Tiger is
scrambling two fighters, and they've alerted
N.a.s Dallas and Carswell Patriot
batteries and HAWK units 131 and 132.
We've acknowledged the HOLD FIRE
order."
  Witt relaxed and got her breathing under control.
It was just another alert, probably the fifteenth one
since she set up operations here less than two
days ago. As it was during the Persian Gulf War
of 1991, the brass aboard the AWACS radar
planes flag everybody even marginally suspect as
UNKNOWN during the first few days of a conflict.
  When the friendly forces became more organized,
everyone got more comfortable, and procedures became
better understood and more routine, the numbers of alerts
decreased, even to the point where engaging a SCUD
missile was considered routine. This was shaping up to be
the same. Witt checked the status readouts--yes,
every Patriot, HAWK, and Avenger fire unit was
reporting "HOLD FIRE." The unknown was still
over thirty miles out, well within range of
Patriot and coming within range of HAWK batteries
in a few minutes. The Air Force fighters were
airborne, and M.i.c.c had a solid track
on them. No crisis yet.
  Witt studied the battalion engagement
officer's radar screen as the fighters converged on the
suspect airliner. The airspace for fifty
miles around Dallas-Fort Worth had
been divided up into safe-fly corridors, which
corresponded to the FAA'S published STAR, or
Standard Terminal Arrival, procedures. The
corridors were like gradually narrowing chutes beginning
at four radio navigation beacons surrounding
DFW, angling down from the higher enroute
altitudes to lower heading toward DFW in a
threatening way--a combination of high airspeed, low
altitude, not following airways, and no
identification beacon meant "threatening" to the
Patriot fire control computers--any aircraft
straying outside the safe-fly corridors could
legally be shot at by Patriot surface-to-air
missiles. Inside twenty miles to the airport,
the corridors became narrow funnels, and within two
miles of the runway, the safe-fly zone was a thin
tube only a few hundred feet wide.
  Although Patriot missiles could hit a hostile
plane anywhere along its route of flight, even at
very low altitude and close to the terminal buildings,
their assigned fire area was from twenty to fifty
miles from DFW. The HAWK missiles would
engage between twenty and two miles from the terminal
buildings, and the Avenger Stinger missiles and
.50-caliber cannons would engage
inside two miles.
  "I don't get it--what's going on here?"
Witt murmured. Until a few seconds ago,
this new unknown had been a regular inbound, a
private Boeing 727 executive corporate
or charter job, squawking all its normal beacon
codes and doing generally normal things in a very confusing
airspace system. Now, the Air Force AWACS
radar crew had made it an "unknown."
  "We got a kill code of 0.75 from
Patriot," Sergeant Pierini called out.
  The Patriot fire control computer was
programmed with a set of hostile-aircraft flight
parameters--distance, speed, heading, altitude,
flight path, location in or away from the safe-fly
zones, general tactical situation--and every target was
assigned a hostile track code, or "kill
code." A score of 1.0 meant that Patriot
believed the hostile was going to strike either the
Patriot site or Patriot's assigned
protection zone. Next to the target's kill code
was Patriot's estimate of a successful kill if
it laullched on the hostile track--right now,
patriot's confidence of a kill was 0.95. It was
probably an underestimate.
  "Hold fire, Sergeant," Witt said. "The
fighters are on him.
  Let them deal with this sucker."
  "All units acknowledging HOLD FIRE,"
Pierini replied.
  Aboard the F-16 A.d.f Fighter
Tango X-Ray-311 The vertical and
horizontal antenna sweep indexers on the
F-16 A.d.f's AN/APG-66 radar
scope continued to move, but a small white box had
appeared at the upper-left portion of his F-16
Fighter Falcon A.d.f's radar screen.
Captain Ron Himes, 111th Fighter
Squadron "Texans," Ellington Field,
Houston, Texas, clicked a button on his
throttle, moving two white lines called the
target acquisition symbol onto the white box,
then pressing and releasing the button to lock the
cursor onto the target. He switched to medium
PRF, or pulse repetition frequency, to get
a clearer look at the target. The fire control
computer displayed the unknown target's flight
parameters--range thirty miles, speed three
hundred knots, altitude five thousand feet and
descending. Himes clicked open his
radio and reported, "Tango X-Ray-311,
judy," indicating he had the target on radar and
needed no further intercept information.
  "Roger, 311," the weapons controller aboard
the E-3Can AWACS radar plane responded.
"Check nose cold, ID only. You're cleared
in the block angels six to eight."
  "311 copies, ID pass only, nose is
cold," Himes responded, letting the controller
know--for the third time since takeoff--that all his
weapons were safe. He transitioned from the radar
scope on his instrument panel to his heads-up
display, which also showed the radar target lock, and
prepared for the intercept. Unlike the past few
years, when all the F-16 Air Defense
Fighter birds carried was ammunition for the cannon,
Himes" and his wingman's birds were fully armed in
air defensestintercept configuration. Himes
carried six AIM-120A Ram radar-guided
missiles on this mission, plus one fuel tank
on each inboard wing pylon and two hundred rounds
of ammunition for his 20-millimeter cannon; his
wingman carried four AIMBLEIP Sidewinder he
missiles. The AIM-120A Ram missile
was a medium-range "robot" missile,
capable of guiding itself to a target at over twice the
speed of sound from twenty-five miles away with its
own on-board radar, rather than having the launch
aircraft illuminate the target for it A lot of
low-level humidity haze and a few summertime
thundercloud buildups in the vicinity of
Dallas-Fort Worth Airport were the only
obstructions in the sky. Himes encountered a little
thermal turbulence at all altitudes, and the
cockpit glass acted like a greenhouse, trapping
the hot Texas sun inside the cockpit and baking
his slate-gray helmet.
  Himes usually enjoyed flying, even in these
conditions, but this assignment was demanding and very
frustrating.
  Only two F-16 fighters from his unit had
deployed to DFWAIRPORT, since Texas Air
National Guard fighters were being sent as far away as
Ohio to fly air defense missions over major
airports, and resources were very scarce. That meant
Himes and his wingman, Captain jhani
Mccallum, one of the first black female combat
pilots in the world took all the scramble calls for
this very busy airport.
  It was never anticipated that the
interceptors would be used so much, and the strain was starting
to wear on Himes. On average, an Air
National Guard fighter on alert would launch once
in a three-day alert shift and spend about two hours
in the air. Here at DFW, they were launching every few
hours, day or night, good weather or bad.
  No sooner would they land from one scramble and
refuel, and they'd be off on another chase. A
sortie lasted only twenty to thirty minutes, but
the tension was ten times greater than anything most of them
had ever experienced. They were chasing down a deadly
terrorist who could kill hundreds of people in one pass
if the interceptor pilots didn't do their job.
But so far all they had accomplished was to train live
missiles and guns on airliners filled with
travelers not explosives.
  It was a deadly game.
  Himes saw the airliner's smoke trail first.
He wagged his vertical stabilizer, a visual
signal to Mccallum to extend in!combat spread
formation left, then gently eased into a left rolling
climb. As the airliner slid underneath him, Himes
continued his roll until he was above and to the's right
side, beside the tail. He made a fast check--
good, Mccallum was in position above and behind
the airliner's left wingtip. She would stay in that
support position until this 727 was either on the
ground, no longer classified an unknown--or they
destroyed it.
  "Tiger Control, 311 in position, nose
cold, radar down, wingman on guard," Himes
reported to the AWACS Weapons Controller
assigned to him.
  "Stand by for visual ID."
  "Tiger Control, ready."
  "Tango X-Ray-311 lead has intercepted
a Boeing 727 airliner, registration number
November 357 Whiskey. Beige in color with
royal blue stripe across the windows, no lettering.
Large heraldic crest in gold on the blue
vertical stabilizer." Himes slid a few more
yards to the left, close enough to see a shadow of his
number-one AIM-120 Ram missile on the
airliner's tail. "Reads "UNIVERSAL" on
the scroll. I observe several sealed windows on
the right side over the wing. The aircraft appears
to be in Westfall Air livery, repeat,
Westfall Air charter livery. Moving underneath."
Westfall Air, based at Dallas-Fort Worth
and owned by the same company in Scotland that
owned Universal Express overnight package
service in Memphis and Sky Partner International
Airlines in New York City, was one of the
largest air charter operations in the south, and its
planes were well known to most Texas fliers.
  Himes gently eased below the fuselage until
he could see the entire underside of the jet. It was
filthy dirty from years of accumulated tire
smoke and perhaps some rough handling, but otherwise
normal. "3 panels, no underslung devices.
No unusual antennas. Moving forward in visual
range of the target's crew."
  "Clear," the weapons controller acknowledged.
  Himes carefully slid out, then above the
airliner, then eased forward until he was abeam the
cockpit windows. Then he slid forward and gently
in toward the airliner until he could see the pilots
turn their heads toward him--he knew he had their
attention now.
  "Tiger Control, I have positive visual
contact on two male individuals in the target's
cockpit, and they do see me as well, repeat, they
do see me." He hit a button on his
multifunction display, which activated a video
camera that had been mounted on the right
wingtip. The video was displayed on the
multifunction display. Himes adjusted the steerable
camera with a toggle switch on the instrument panel
until he could see the cockpit, then zoomed in
until he could clearly see the faces of the men in the
airliner cockpit looking back at him.
  "Smile for the camera, boys," he said
half-aloud as he zoomed in for a nice tight shot.
  "Tango X-Ray-311, this is Tiger
Control, you are clear to divert the flight,
preferred destination airport from your present
position is Fort Worth-Meacham, heading
three-five-one at two thousand feet, do not
overfly Carswell Air Force Base or
Naval Air Station Dallas.
  Landing at Alliance Airport or Dallas
Love Field not authorized.
  Weapon status is HOLD FIRE, repeat,
HOLD FIRE, acknowledge."
  "Tango X-Ray-311 acknowledges weapon
status HOLD FIRE, my nose is cold.
  Switching." He punched up FTW on his
navigation computer, got a heading to Fort
Worth-Meacham Airport, just fifteen miles
west of DFW, switched his radio
frequency to simultaneous VHF and U.h.f
channels, and clicked open his mike. "Attention,
727 airliner November 357-Whiskey, this is
the United States Air Force fighter Tango
X-Ray-311 abeam your right cockpit. You are
in violation of emergency federal air regulations.
All previous A.t.c clearances are hereby
canceled and continued flight toward Dallas-Fort
Worth Airport is denied. You are hereby ordered
to turn left and fly heading three-five-zero,
descend and maintain two thousand feet, and lower your
landing gear immediately. Prepare for a VFRIEND approach
and landing at Fort Worth-Meacham Airport.
Acknowledge these instructions on VHF frequency
121.5 or U.h.f 243.0 now. Over."
  On the GUARD frequency, Himes heard,
"Tango X-Ray-311, this is Westfall
Air 357-Whiskey, I acknowledge your
transmission."
  The accent was typical Texas, smooth but
firm, maybe a Houstonian.
  "Our destination is Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport, we've got the field in sight, and
Approach has cleared us to the field. Is there a
problem?"
  "Westfall 357-W, this is Tango
X-Ray-311, all previous clearances are
canceled. You are ordered to land at Meacham
Airport. Do not overfly Carswell Air Force
Base. We will be escorting you for landing.
  Lower your landing gear and turn left heading
three-four-five.
  Over."
  "Roger .. ." Himes was afraid he might
argue some more, but just then the airliner banked left and
settled on a three-four-zero h, heading, lining
up almost perfectly with Meacham Airport. The
landing gear then came down, and Himes had to lower
flaps to stay in formation as the airliner decelerated.
"Tiger, Westfall-357-W is
slant-Romeo direct Meacham at this time,
over."
  "Tango X-Ray-311 copies, descend and
maintain two thousand, airport is twelve o'clock,
twenty-one miles, contact Meacham Tower on
118.3.
  Acknowledge."
  "Switching to Meacham tower, Westfall .. . stand
by one Tango .
  .
  ."
  Oh shit, Himes thought. Here it comes.
Obviously, when the b landing gear came down, the
charter client woke up--those V.i.p 727's
had a bedroom that rivaled anything on the ground--and
now he was undoubtedly being heard from. "Ah,
Tango X-Ray-311, my client wants to know
why we can't land at DFW. We had a valid
clearance from San Ant "Westfall 357-W,
I don't have that information, sir, but you must comply with
my instructions. All previous clearances have been
canceled. You cannot land at Dallas-Fort Worth.
Over."
  "Okay, Tango X-Ray, but I really need
to know .. ." There was a momentary rustle on the
frequency, like paper being crumpled.
  Himes looked over to the airliner's cockpit and
saw the copilot rising out of his seat and another
man, in a white shirt, tie, and dark beard,
drop into his vacated seat. Then, a definitely
Middle Eastern voice came on the frequency:
"Listen to me, Air Force fighter plane, we land
at big Dallas airport. Right now. Right now.
You understand .
  ..
  ?"
  And at that, Himes saw the bastard grab the's
control wheel and turn it hard to the right--directly
in the F's flight path.
  "Holy mother of God!" Himes pulled on his
control stick and shoved in full military power.
He caught a glimpse of the airliner's nose
rolling toward him, and then a hard slap! under his seat
as the airflow buffet from the big airliner hit the
F-16. They had missed by just a few feet.
Himes continued his climb, raised his flaps, and
fought to roll wings-level. When he finally got himself
stabilized, he had climbed over five thousand
feet above the airliner--it was no longer in sight.
"Tiger flight, this is lead, check."
  "Two's in," Mccallum reported. "I've
got you in sight, Ron. I'm at your seven o'clock
low."
  "Stay on the airliner, Jhani."
  "Thought you needed help, came to see if you needed
help."
  "No, damn it, stay on the target." Too
late now, Himes thought angrily. He switched
back to Tiger Control: "Tiger Control,
Tango X-Ray-311 flight, we had
to break away from the target, he made a sudden
turn across our flight path. Over."
  Aboard the E-3Can AWACS Radar
Plane Tiger Control Without the fighters tailing
the airliner, Kestrel and his weapons controllers had
lost their "eyes" on the scene, and without visual
contact they had only a two-dimensional radar
image to use. "Lost visual contact on the
"unknown," was the weapons controller shouted
to everyone in the weapons section of the radar plane.
  Kestrel leaned closer to his screen. The
airliner was fifteen miles out, over Lake
Arlington, well outside the safe-fly
corridor, five hundred feet below the
programmed approach altitude, a little faster
than normal, and still heading for Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport.
  According to the rules of engagement, that bastard was dead
right now.
  "Comm, broadcast warning message on GUARD,
on all DFW tower frees, and all DFW
regional approach control frees, try to get that
unknown turned westbound."
  The assigned weapons controller was already back
on his radio.
  "Tango X-Ray-311, this is Tiger
Control, your bogey is at two o'clock, three
miles, fly heading zero-six-five, descend and
maintain angels two ."
  "Tallyho, Tiger," the lead F-16 pilot
reported. "Descending."
  : But it wasn't going to happen fast enough, and
Kestrel knew it.
  The sonofabitch was heading right for the west terminals
of Dallas Fort Worth. He looked up and saw
Hardcastle and Vincenti carefully studying him.
"All right, Admiral, Colonel," he said.
"I could use a be little advice here."
  "You still got time to reacquire the intercept,"
Vincenti said immediately. "He's still five minutes from
landing. Get on his ass and try to turn him away.
If he doesn't turn by five miles--" .?--
nail him."
  "Admiral?" Hardcastle hesitated. It was
he who headed the Pentagon staff that designed the
air defense parameters, not more than three days
ago. A staff of over one hundred had pored over
charts and diagrams : of the thirty-three largest
airports in the United States, deciding the :
safest and simplest way an airliner could
approach the airport in a hostile situation. In
the short space of time they had to work the problem, the
staff had designed a plan that, even if a pilot
screwed E5 up every possible rule in the book and
did everything wrong, there was still a margin of safety that
would save a nonterrorist but still destroy a
terrorist before he got close enough to bomb a
terminal.
  , Well, that was theory, done on charts and
diagrams and computers.
  This guy had busted every rule, exceeded every
parameter.
  He could not look more hostile unless he was
launching cruise missiles.
  : He should have been dead sixty seconds ago,
the minute he turned into the F-16 .. .
  : But Hardcastle heard himself say, "Continue the
intercept," and all the planning and all the theory
went right out the window- as it usually does in
situations like this. "Get Approach Control and
DFW Tower to divert all other flights. No one
approaches DFW until this is sorted out."
Kestrel breathed a sigh of relief that could be heard
over the roar of the engines in the AWACS' cabin, and
he had every free technician on board
AWACS calling the airliner.
  Aboard an Airtech CN-235
Twin-Turboprop Transport Northwest of
DFW Airport "Attention all aircraft,
air defense emergency in progress over
Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, stand by for divert
instructions.
  Hazardous flight precaution, all aircraft,
do not approach closer than ten miles of the
Dallas-Fort Worth VOR or you may be fired
upon without warning." The message, broadcast on the
tower frequency, was repeated several times; then:
"Airtech-75-Delta, turn right heading
two-four-zero, vectors clear of emergency
airspace, sorry for the delay."
  "Right to two-four-zero,
Airtech-75-Delta," the copilot of the
Canadian-built Airtech CN-235
turboprop transport plane replied.
  He switched frequencies and shook his head, then
laughed out loud.
  "Jesus, what a stupid motherfucker," he said
to his pilot. "That guy's going to get his ass shot
off if he's not careful."
  The pilot finished a long drag on his
marijuana joint, keeping the pungent smoke in his
lungs for a full fifteen seconds before letting it
slowly trickle out. "Sounded like a raghead to me,"
the pilot said.
  "Serves him right."
  "So what are we gonna do?" the copilot
asked.
  "What the hell can we do? We bust that ten-mile
ring, they're liable to put a Hawk missile in our
face. Better make the turn."
  The big transport plane turned right and headed
southwest.
  "The boss will be pissed if we don't make this
delivery," the copilot fretted. "We're already
late as it is."
  The answer to that one came a few moments later:
"Airtech-75Delta, Dallas Airport
has just closed temporarily due to the air defense
emergency," the approach controller told him. "I
can give you vectors to Redbird or Meacham.
Say intentions."
  "Stand by one," the copilot radioed.
Cross-cockpit, he said, "Oh shit, the boss
is going to skewer us. Now what?"
  The pilot was too stoned to care what
happened to him. He lazily shrugged his shoulders,
enjoying the view. "Hell, we got the gas--
let's head over to Meacham."
  But as he glanced out the windows to his left, he
saw an airport--and, to the west of the airport,
something that he had never seen before but had no trouble at
all recognizing. "I got an idea," the pilot
said, banking hard left toward the airport and
beginning a steep descent.
  "If we can t make the delivery, we might as
well make a splash."
  Air Defense Battalion M.i.c.c
Dallas-Fort Worth Airport "Range eight
miles and closing," Sergeant Pierini said aloud.
  "Tiger 111 Patriot battery reports
confidence down to 0.89.
  Tiger Patriot battery confidence at 0.92,
and Tiger 113 is 0.93.
  Recommend degrading Patriot and committing
HAWK batteries 131 and 132 to engage."
  "Agree," Captain Connor said. "Uplink the
engagement change to Tiger Control. Engagement
status remains HOLD FIRE."
  The Patriot missiles at Carswell Air
Force Base, Alliance Airport, and
Naval Air Station Dallas were still capable of
destroying the airliner, but the farther away and lower it
flew, the less capable Patriot would be.
Patriot would still track the airliner, but now only
the HAWK and Avenger missiles would open fire
if the order came.
  That order could come any second, Colonel
Witt thought as the airliner continued to drive toward
DFW. "Even if the pilot of that thing isn't a
terrorist," she said half-aloud, "he should die in
a huge fireball, because he's so stupid he
shouldn't be allowed to breed."
  "Six miles .. . still have a HOLD FIRE
command," Connor reported.
  "Five-point-five miles .. ."
  "Stand by batteries 131 and 132," Witt said.
She had reached up over Connor's head and was
repeatedly mashing the battalion klaxon button,
warning anyone within earshot to get away from the
launchers before a missile motor ignited in their
face. "Sarge, notify DFW security, tell
them we may be launching."
  "Target turning!" Connor suddenly shouted.
"Unknown eighteen-track heading now
two-niner-zero, continuing turn to heading
two-seven-zero, climbing through three thousand feet."
  "Jesus, that sonofabitch was lucky," Witt
exclaimed, feeling her heart pounding in her chest.
She took a deep breath, the first in what seemed like
several minutes. "I hope the feds bust that
asshole just for taking five years off my life.
Get a poll of the battalion, Jim, and check--
was Suddenly, one of the aircraft data blocks on
Connor's radar scope began to blink. "Mike--
what is that .. . ?"
  Pierini caught it at the same moment: "Track
ID 4Q121 made a sudden turn toward
Alliance Airport," he reported. "He was on
a vector heading from Dallas Tower during the
emergency .. . Tiger Control still showing him as a
valid track .. . now Tiger is making him an
"unknown," sir, we've got an unknown,
number 19, three miles east of Alliance
Airport, altitude rapidly decreasing, now
less than two thousand feet, airspeed two
hundred knots .. . range two miles, still
closing, altitude one point five, still decreasing
.. ."
  "Jesus .. ." Witt hurriedly changed
to Tiger Control's frequency and pulled
her headset microphone closer to her lips as she
watched the radar scope: "Tiger Control, this is
100, I need an engagement command on unknown 19
blowing into Alliance," Witt radioed immediately to the
AWACS radar plane. "He's diving on
Alliance Airport, range less t "Lost
contact with Tiger-113," Pierini shouted.
  "Datalink is down, switching to landlines .. .
hard lines down.
  No connectivity with Tiger-113."
  "What the hell happened?" Witt cried. She
turned to the VHF radio and tried that--no
response. "Shit, we lost everything. Check your
systems and do a BIT test." She clicked on the
U.h.f radio to the Air Force AWACS
plane: "Tiger Control, this is 100, check
connectivity with Tiger 113, datalink and
connectivity lost at Battalion M.i.c.c.
  Over."
  Aboard the E-3Can AWACS Radar
Plane Tiger-90 "I see it, I see it,"
Kestrel said, studying his radar display. The
surveillance technicians had assigned an
unknown code 19 to the newcomer that had just blown
past his approach clearance
into Dallas-Fort Worth, and now they had put a
giant flashing arrow on the radar screen, pointing
at UNK 19, to get his attention. He was
silently kicking himself for not seeing the guy turn
toward Alliance Airport earlier, but he was trying
to watch a half-dozen major airports at
once, and he had turned his attention away from
DFW once the Westfall plane had turned
away. The tiny blue square that marked the locations
of the two Patriot missile batteries at
Alliance Airport was gone--not flashing, which would have
indicated that the datalink was down but the site was
operational, but completely gone, as if it never had
been set up. "The Patriot site at Alliance
went down. Todd, get one of the fighters over there
and have him take a look."
  As if the fighter pilot had heard him,
Kestrel heard, "Tiger Control, Tango
X-Ray-311, I'm about fifteen miles
southeast of Alliance Airport, following the 727
airliner. I can see a lot of smoke and fire coming
from Alliance Airport. I see .. . Tiger,
I think I see secondary explosions--yes,
definitely secondary explosions. I think one
of the Patriot batteries went up."
  Kestrel swore under his breath, then said, "Where
are our unknowns, Senior Director?"
  "One unknown, target ID 18, ten miles
east of Meacham Airport," the Senior
Director responded. "One unknown, target
ID 19, now two miles northwest of Alliance
Airport."
  "MCCALL from Meacham Tower, unknown 18 has
requested clearance through the class D airspace
westbound, destination Will Rogers Airport."
  "Denied," Kestrel said. "I want Tango
X-Ray-31"...swingman to intercept unknown 18,
and Tango X-Ray-311 leader to intercept
unknown 19. Comm, this is MC, I want--" .
"MC, target 19 turning right and descending .
  .. now heading zero-niner-zero, altitude one
thousand .. ."
  There was no time to warn this guy, no time for an
intercept or visual identification. Kestrel
wet his lips, prayed for a cigarette--but there was no
time for praying for anything. "MC, unknown 19
passing through heading one-two-zero .. ."
  Kestrel reached up and hit a button on his
upper-left communications panel, marked simply
"B," and said, "Tiger 100, Tiger,
unknown target released tight."
  Air Defense Battalion M.i.c.c,
Dallas-Fort Worth Airport The Patriot
fire control computer had already placed a blinking
diamond symbol around the red caret on the radar
screen marked UNK 19, signifying that it was
ready to attack the aircraft. Captain Connor
reached up to his upper instrument panel and hit a
button, activating a loud klaxon in the area of the
Patriot missile launchers stationed at
Carswell Air Force Base and N.a.s
Dallas. He checked and there was only one blinking
diamond on the screen--the Westfall airliner still
had a diamond around it, meaning the computer was
tracking it as a hostile but was not yet prepared
to launch on it.
  He then pressed a switch on the lower-right
corner of his instrument panel marked LAUNCH.
  The M.i.c.c computer had a choice--the
target was within range of Tiger 111, the
Patriot site at Carswell AFB, and Tiger
136, a HAWK site at Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport--and it selected the northernmost
Patriot battery at Carswell, launcher
number one. It took only five
seconds for the order to be relayed via microwave
to the Engagement Control Center van at
Carswell, which selected the proper launcher,
activated the first two missiles, dumped the
initial targeting information to the missiles' guidance
units, released the safeties, and fired the solid
rocket motor on missile number one. The first
missile's motor blew out a protective
fiberglass rear cover and shot a column of fire
and smoke out the back end of the boxlike launcher,
and the missile's quartz dielectric nose cap
pierced another fiberglass cover on the front of the
missile canister as the missile shot out of the
launcher. The launch computer waited three
seconds for the first missile to clear the launcher and for the
launcher to stop shaking from the exhaust blast of the first
missile before commanding the second missile launch.
  Patriot engagements were always done in pairs for
maximum effectiveness .. .
  Aboard Airtech 75-D "Man oh man,
did you see that?" the copilot of Cazaux's
plane shouted gleefully. The pallet of four
cluster bomb units they had just dropped on the
Patriot missile site at Alliance
Airport was doing an unbelievable job.
The exploding cluster bombs made the sun-dried
brown earth west of the runway look as if it were
boiling, with tiny flashes of yellow fire erupting
in a large area the size of two full city
blocks. Then, one of those tiny explosions would hit
next to one of the upraised Patriot launchers, and the
whole unit would disappear in a huge explosion that
would rock their little transport plane. After one such
explosion, one Patriot missile cooked off,
and the two terrorists could see it spinning along the
ground in wide arcs until it skipped across the
runway and plowed into a group of buildings in the
northern part of the airport, causing another huge
explosion and fire. "Hey, go around once more.
  I gotta see this again."
  "No sweat, man," the totally relaxed pilot
murmured, starting a right turn back toward the
airport so he could give the copilot a better
look out the right cockpit windows. "Hey, that was
fun." He rolled out momentarily, checking
outside, then looked over to his copilot and said
lazily, "It was nice flyin' with ya, bud."
  "Say what?" The pilot pointed out the left
cockpit window with his thumb. On the horizon, they
could see a white line suddenly appear from
the ground, speeding skyward out of sight. He
squinted, trying to look up at its origin, but it was
too high up and moving too fast to see. "What in
the hell's this--" Launcher number one was set at
a fixed 60-degree up angle, and it was pointed
far to the northwest, well away from the eastbound
aircraft, but Patriot didn't need to be
pointed directly at its quarry at launch. The
missile quickly adjusted course, sending a white
streak of smoke across the early-morning Texas
sky. It climbed to fifteen thousand feet in less
than three seconds before starting its terminal dive.
Traveling at over twice the speed of sound, it
took only six seconds for the first missile to find
its target. After the hit, the Patriot engagement
radar locked on to the biggest piece of the stricken
aircraft, the aft half of the fuselage, and that's
what it steered the second missile into--but one
missile was all that was needed.
  "Splash unknown 19," Connor reported in a
monotone, detached voice.
  The plane--he wasn't even sure what kind of
plane it was or how many persons were aboard--was
destroyed, clean, simple, and quick.
  Radar return one moment, the next
moment nothing. Connor felt hor actions were
precisely like the simulator sessions they
constantly ran--the little Patriot missile
"football" symbols racing across the screen, the
dotted lines showing the missile's track
intersecting with the target's track, the "coffin"
symbol around the target as the computed time of
intercept ran out and as the radar tried to determine
if the target was still flying. But, of course, this was no
simulation. "Set HOLD FIRE all units,"
he murmured, his voice barely audible over the
whir of the van's air conditioning units, "and let's
get a status report."
  Aboard Tiger 90 It was an eerie feeling on
the AWACS radar plane at that moment.
  In the Weapons and Surveillance sections, most
of the controllers were busy with their own sectors and were not
aware that a Patriot missile had just destroyed
an aircraft near Fort Worth, Texas. But the
Senior Director and Major Kestrel, the
Mission Crew Commander, simply wore blank
expressions as they stared straight ahead at their
scopes.
  The other controllers and technicians that had
participated in the shootdown were on their
feet, silently looking over toward Kestrel.
  Most of them had helped kill things before for real--
but they had been SCUD missiles over Saudi
Arabia or Israel, or drones over the Gulf
of Mexico or Pacific Ocean during
live-fire exercises, never a manned aircraft
flying over America.
  "Get me a status on all Tiger units,"
Kestrel said, forcing as much steel into his voice as
he could. "Verify all units acknowledging HOLD
FIRE." He could see the status of all his
assigned air and ground air defense systems
himself, but he wanted to hear it for himself, direct from the
unit operators and commanders, to reassure him that he
was back in control and that no one else would die
unless he gave the command.
  "MCC, unknown 18 is still looking for clearance
to Oklahoma city .
  .
  ."
  "I want that bastard on the ground at Meacham,"
Kestrel ordered.
  "I want both Tango X-Ray-311
units to intercept unknown 18, and if they have to blow
out his windscreen or shoot off an engine,
I want that sonofabitch on the ground immediately. I
want federal agents to arrest the crew."
  "It's being done, Will," Ian Hardcastle
replied. "Marshals Service agents and the FBI
are on the way." He had been speaking on a
headset to Marshals Service agents on the ground
at Dallas-Fort Worth as the incident was
occurring.
  "Major .. . there was nothing you could do,"
Hardcastle said.
  Hardcastle could see the pain and the anger in
Kestrel's face.
  These men were professional soldiers, trained
to defend their country, yet killing was not part of their
nature. It was even more difficult because it was so
easy, so detached, so remote--say a word, and
seconds later, men die and a very large air machine
is destroyed.
  "You did everything right, and you exercised proper
judgment."
  "Then why in hell did we lose a Patriot
site, Admiral?" Kestrel said. "There were a
hundred soldiers at that site out there at
Alliance."
  "You got the guy who attacked them,
W. There was no way we could know unknown 19 was a
terrorist. He had a proper flight plan,
followed the proper procedures."
  "Then what are we doing here, Admiral?"
Kestrel shouted, whipping off his headset and shooting
to his feet before Hardcastle.
  "We can't stop anyone who wants to come in. That
Westfall flight is doing everything completely
wrong! was He pointed to his radar screen, his
eyes bulging in anger. "He's still doing everything
wrong, and he's getting away scot-free."
  "We gotta deal with that, W."
  "Are you saying I should blow away that Westfall
flight?"
  "I'm not saying that, either," Hardcastle replied.
"Your job is to protect your assigned airports
from aerial assault."
  "Well, I obviously failed at that."
  "If one plane screws up and gets away,
and a terrorist is allowed to attack, then it's the
system that's failed, not you," Also vincenti
interjected. "You're doing everything you can."
  "sir, I need you on headsets," the senior
director interjected.
  Hardcastle could see real, serious
stress etched on that man's face-the pressure was
on early in the game, and it showed no signs of
letting up at all. "We've got another
unknown, over Houston-Hobby, declaring an
emergency."
  "Shit! was Kestrel exclaimed, slipping
wearily into his seat and donning his headset once
again. "Admiral, I don't know what the answer
is.
  But this is not going to work. It is just not going
to fucking work.
  was Near Bedminter, New Jerey That Evening The
television was on, and CNN was giving its hourly
wrap-up of the hunt for Henri Cazaux.jo Ann
Vega shivered with excitement as she saw pictures
of the aftermath of the latest attack, a cargo plane
shot down north of Fort Worth, Texas, after it
had dropped several cluster bombs on an Army
Patriot missile site. Military commentators
were now talking about the capabilities of the Patriot
missile, assuring everyone that the advanced
surface-to-air missile could easily defend
its assigned airports.
  She rose from her leather sofa and walked toward the
windows, which looked out through the front of the
house past the four-acre, tree-lined front
lawn, and shook her head while she thought of the
commentator's words. No one, she thought, was safe from
Henri Cazaux.
  Even a Patriot missile could not stop him.
Only Henri Cazaux himself could stop the killing.
  Looking out the third-story window through the driving
rain, Jo Ann Vega could see the guards in the
front of the mansion, who had been sullenly pacing
back and forth around the grounds through the warm summer
rain, suddenly snap to attention. Cigarette
butts went flying and submachine guns appeared from
under long coats back up to carry-arms position.
A few minutes later, a big one-ton dually
six-passenger extended cab pickup truck
zoomed around through the trees at the edge of the grassy
front lawn and down the gravel driveway toward
the mansion, stopping about fifty yards from the front
door.
  While one guard covered the driver and another
covered the passenger cab, a third guard shined a
flashlight inside the front passenger side,
checking IDS.
  The truck was allowed to pass, parking just underneath the
breezeway that covered the front
entryway. A man she had never seen before emerged from
the back of the truck, stood out on the lawn as he
finished his cigarette. As he tossed it away, he
looked up and saw Vega standing in the window, watching
him. Their eyes locked for several moments before he
pulled up his raincoat collar and headed inside.
  Vega began to quiver, and she reached for a pack of
cigarettes.
  Empty. She shivered again, and she felt as cold
and as sweaty as if she was out there in the humidity and
rain with the guards.
  Henri was home. Good .. .
  She had evacuated her home in Newburgh,
New York, several days ago, right after the
attack on Memphis. As they had expected,
Newburgh and Stewart International had become a
major supply depot for the effort to stop Henri
Cazaux, with dozens of flights of C-5
Galaxy, C-141 Starlifter, and C-17
Globemaster transports bringing soldiers and air
defense missile batteries into Stewart and
trucking them to New York City and airports in
Connecticut. Stewart International was also the
southeastern New York headquarters of the New
York State Police, with the FBI and
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
setting up shop at the Army barracks at Stewart
as well, so clearly it was no longer practical for
Cazaux to visit her there.
  Vega now occupied the entire third floor of the
spacious mansion, with luxurious furniture, a
little galley, a fully equipped entertainment
center, and plenty of windows to watch the deer and other
animals scamper across the property. Her new
bedroom was almost as large as her entire storefront
apartment in Newburgh had been.
  It was a lovely, peaceful, tranquil .. .
prison. She had no company and was not allowed any
guests. Her meals were brought to her by guards, who
patrolled the hallways and who would periodically
enter her room, even her bathroom, unannounced,
to check on her. The guards never spoke to her,
hardly ever looked at her, even when they would burst
in on her in the shower or dressing in front of the
mirror. Of course, she had no phone. She had
no one she desired to call, but it effectively
sealed her isolation.
  She was allowed to have all her astrological
books, charts, cards, runes, and even had a new
computer with her charting software installed on
it, so she spent a lot of time doing Henri's charts
and readings, mapping out the progress of his campaign
of terror, and writing what amounted to a script, a
Book of Revelations, about how his private war would
turn out. There was no doubt that his strength was growing
each and every day. Every life, every existence could of course
take a number of different paths, and Jo Ann
tried to search each of the strongest and best-defined
paths that her Henri would most likely take each
day. They all went in the same direction--horrible
death.
  Henri's death was clear, but his was not the only soul
that she saw feel the pain of vengeful, wicked,
bloodthirsty death. She saw thousands of tortured
souls crying into the mists of the future, thousands of
souls painfully ripped from this life and thrust into the
next like hair being pulled from the skin by the roots.
  But even more horrible than that was of a nation torn
apart by a desperate, cold-blooded act of hatred
by Henri Cazaux, an incredible act of destruction
that would change millions of lives .. .
  "Hello, Jo Ann."
  Vega whirled around and saw him. Jesus, he was
as silent as a snake.
  His hair, brown and curly with a hint of
gray around the temples, was growing back with astounding
speed, so fast that he appeared a completely
different person. He seemed thinner, but that only
helped to accentuate his wiry, muscular frame and
lean, cheetah-like profile.
  He wore a sports coat over a black
T-shirt, which he removed as soon as he entered
her room.
  "Henri," she greeted him, suddenly short of
breath both by being startled by him and by the excitement of
seeing him again.
  "It's good to see you."
  "You look good, Jo Ann," Cazaux said
casually. His words made her heart flutter. They
were the most caring words he had ever said to her. He
stepped toward her, his eyes roaming her body
momentarily, and then he said in French, "Ca va,
Jo Ann. How have you been? his
  was Ca va bien, merci, Henri," she replied.
"I'm lonely without you, Henri. I wish you would
stay with me, but--"
  "You have already seen otherwise," Cazaux finished
for her.
  "You know the forces that drive me, Jo Ann. You
know that the power that is the instrument of my
revenge is stronger than both of us.
  I have come so that you can tell me more about my
future."
  "I don't know that the forces that propel you are
too strong to be overcome, Henri," Vega
interrupted. "I've seen many of your futures.
  You are vulnerable now."
  "Vulnerable? How?"
  "The forces of good are organizing against you,"
Vega said.
  "There is weakness among your troops. Their
resolve is not as strong as yours. You must use your
power to keep all those around you in line."
  "I have seen to that," Cazaux said with a smile.
"You shall see."
  "Good," Vega said. She averted her eyes
slightly, as if embarrassed to tell all.
Cazaux reached out and grasped her arm, wordlessly
ordering your targets," the woman said. "These small
airports, this emphasis on these little companies."
  "I don't understand, Jo Ann."
  "The dark master has given you an enormous
gift, Henri," Vega said.
  "Eternal life, power beyond any mortal, the
vision, the strength--and you waste it on
whatever this stockbroker tells you to attack."
  "He has chosen his targets carefully,"
Cazaux said. "I don't understand all that he
does, but the money he earns for us is far beyond
anything I've ever seen before in my life."
  "Do you think the dark master cares about how much
money you make, Henri?" Vega asked. "He
has given you a gift much more precious than money.
Are you going to waste it on earning a few more
dollars?"
  "Then what?" Cazaux asked. "You're my
adviser! Tell me!" She stared at him, said
nothing, then they both diverted their attention to the
television. A group of men and women were standing in
front of the White House for an impromptu
press conference: "Henri Cazaux is a menace
to American society, and I think it's time the
White House and the Pentagon take off the kid
gloves and get serious about stopping this bastard," the
man in the lead said. He was identified by a caption
as former Vice President Kevin Martindale.
He continued, "So far the White House has put
a gag order on their plans on how to deal with this
crisis, which claimed thirty-one more victims this
morning near Dallas. The American people
deserve to be told how the Administration is
responding to the crisis."
  "There," Vega said. "That is your target."
  "What? Those men? I agree they should be
executed, but I don't--"
  "I and my colleagues on both sides of the
aisle are calling for a bipartisan Senate hearing
on the terrorist crisis that is paralyzing our
country," another person, identified as Senator
Georgette Heyerdahl, said. "What we are
demanding is a full-scale military-led manhunt
for Henri Cazaux."
  "A manhunt!" Cazaux laughed. "Those
idiots are incapable of mounting a manhunt for a child,
let alone a group of trained soldiers."
  "Congress will enact legislation authorizing full
military participation in the hunt for Cazaux,"
Heyerdahl continued. "We are asking that the
President federalize the National Guard to assist
law enforcement agencies to patrol the airports,
protect the air defense units, fly along on
scheduled commercial flights, and assist in the FBI
investigation." The image shifted to shots of
soldiers with Stinger shoulder-fired antiaircraft
missiles, and then to an aerial shot of the
White House.
  "There," Vega said, a smile coming to her full
red lips. "That is your target." Cazaux was staring
with complete surprise at the aerial view of the
White House and of the Capitol Mall.
  The White House? The Capitol his But .. .
But, of course .. .
  "Yes," he breathed, his chest tightening in
anticipation.
  "Yes, that's it. No more airports, no more little
business run by nobodies."
  Oh yes, he was going to be unstoppable.
  "The attack on Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport was a complete failure," Cazaux said
later to his assembled staff officers. Almost
everyone except Tomas Ysidro remained
perfectly still in case any movement might be
noticed by their angry commander. He tossed a
plastic bag onto the circular glass coffee
table before them. "I will not tolerate any more
failures from this staff. Is that clear?"
  The plastic bag landed on the table with a
gut-wrenching splut!
  and flopped open, but no one dared to touch it--no
one except Ysidro, who was sick enough to do
just about anything anyone could possibly imagine. Under
Cazaux's stern gaze, Ysidro held the bag
up, examined its contents, smiled at Cazaux and
nodded approvingly, then reached in and pulled a
black, sticky blob out of the bag by a long rubbery
tube.
  "This belonged to Georges Lechamps, the
butthead who hired those two dope-smoking pilots
for the Dallas mission, eh, Henri?" Ysidro
said, holding the thing up and twirling the tube as if
he were carefully studying the thing, although he was really
looking to see everyone else's reaction. Cazaux
said nothing, but watched as everyone stared in horror at
the squishy black blob that Ysidro was handling and
examining. "Well, I guess al' Georges'
heart really wasn't in his work!" Ysidro laughed,
letting the now-recognizable mass drop back into the
bag.
  That was enough for Harold Lake's assistant, Ted
Fell--he barely made it out of the dining room before
vomiting in a bathroom off the billiard room down
the hall. Harold Lake felt equally as
nauseated, but he was glad he could control his
stomach, because Cazaux and Ysidro watched Fell
run out of the room with utter disgust and disdain.
  "I'll agree, Lechamps paid too much and got
two worthless pilots to fly that mission,"
Gregory Townsend said, quickly ignoring the
blood-filled bag of gore on the table in front
of him. "But the mission was important because it pointed
out the military's defense setup. Our field people
report that our Airtech was destroyed by a
Patriot missile fired from Carswell Air
Force Base while the Airtech was less than a
thousand feet aboveground. That was a shot from about
fifteen miles away; a double missile launch,
as I believe all Patriot attacks are done.
That tells us that the Patriot missiles alone have
extraordinary capability.
  "What we learned about the other near-engagement was
important as well.
  The Army let that first unidentified 727 fly
right to five miles outside Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport and still did not engage--at cruise
speeds, that's less than forty-five seconds to a
bomb-release point.
  Our people saw two F-16 fighters scramble from
the Dallas Naval Air Station, and those fighters
did not engage either. At least one and possibly
several Hawk anti-air batteries were
within range, and possibly even an Avenger Stinger
mobile unit, and yet no one fired on the
unidentified 727."
  "You can believe that will not be the case the next
time," one of the other staff officers said.
  "The next target will have to be saturated for any
attack to be successful," Townsend summarized.
"Multiple aircraft, multiple axes of
attack. Follow the flight plan as best as
possible, then strike as close as possible to the
aerodrome. As we saw with the very first
unidentified-aircraft alert in Dallas, the
mobile air defense units and the fighters
escorting the suspect are not in a favorable
position to attack the suspect once he's on the
ground--they still track him, to some extent, but they
assume he is not a hostile target when his wheels
actually touch ground. We can use that fact to our
advantage.
  Of course, timing and speed are essential."
  "The problem is getting pilots to fly these
missions," Ysidro said.
  "The money ain't attracting 'em anymore,
Henri--everyone knows it's a one-way trip."
  "That's not a problem," Townsend said
confidently. "We have a system that can fly any of
our planes by remote control now."
  "It ain't gonna fucking work, Townie,"
Ysidro said. "Just find some cocky slug pilot
who wants the money. Stupid pilots will do
anything."
  "My GPS system has tested very well on a
small single-engine plane," Townsend said
emphatically. "It's simple and basic, like a
large radio-controlled model plane except much
more sophisticated.
  It uses a simple digital autopilot
system with altitude and vertical speed presets,
hooked into a Global Positioning System
navigation set.
  I can launch the plane by remote control, tie
in the autopilot and the satellite navigator, and
it'll fly right to the coordinates I punch in.
  With the GPS controlling the plane's altitude,
I can have it dive-bomb right on top of whatever
coordinates you like."
  "The GPS satellite system's accuracy can
be degraded by the Department of Defense," Cazaux
said. "Our attacks call for precise guidance and
accurate delivery."
  "With those fuel-air explosives, Henri, you can
miss the target by almost a half-mile and still blow the
shit out of it," Townsend added.
  Cazaux thought about that idea for a moment, then nodded
his agreement.
  "Very well, we will use the GPS'-CONTROLLED
planes as well, but only with the smaller planes--
I want human pilots controlling the larger
aircraft. Where are your GPS'-CONTROLLED
planes, Gregory?"
  "I just flew the first one into Boone County
Airport for testing," Townsend replied. "I can
pick up the fuel-air explosives canisters and
fly it anywhere you want."
  "Very well." Cazaux gave him a destination
airport, then said, "Tomas is correct--there
seems to be no shortage of pilots who will fly
these missions for the proper sum of money. You are
authorized to offer any amount necessary to get a crew
to fly our planes. But understand this: any crew we
contract with will either deliver the weapons on target as
specified, or they will die the same fate as
Monsieur Lechamps. Is that clear?" There was
an immediate chorus of "Yes, sir" all round the table
and its grisly centerpiece.
  "The key to a successful strike now is
to destroy the groundbased air defense sites
nearest the designated target," Cazaux said.
  "We shall stage commando raids on the nearest
Patriot, Hawk, and Avenger batteries to the
designated target, and on the master command and control
van on the ground. Our scouts can locate each of
these assets and plan coordinated attacks at every
point."
  "That leaves the fighters and the radar systems that
control them," Townsend said. "We can attack the
terminal radar antennas to knock out the ground-based
radars; we know their locations precisely.
  But the airborne radar planes and the fighters will
still be in operation. If they're on the ground, we can
hit them. We know the radar planes" main
operating base is in Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma, and our scouts can locate any other
aerodromes they may deploy their radar planes.
The fighters are widely deployed--we've seen
them at the most unlikely aerodromes, parked beside
fabric-winged planes and tiny line service
plywood shacks trying to top up on jet fuel--
and they fly more aerial patrols instead of returning
to ground alert after a run. That means
they'll be harder to target. But we've got the
manpower and the hardware to raid a dozen locations
simultaneously, Henri. Just give us a target
and a time. A few days after we get the planes, we
can--"
  "I've got a better suggestion," Harold
lake interjected. "Why don't we quit while
we're ahead here?"
  The entire room turned as quiet as a tomb.
The other staff officers looked at Lake in
astonishment, wondering how he or any man who
knew Henri Cazaux could dare to suggest such a thing
as stopping an operation that Cazaux was actively
directing. Lake noticed the sudden, deathly
silence, took another deep swig of Scotch, and
went on. "Look at you bums, looking at me like
I just developed four fucking heads.
  Henri, I'm serious about this." Lake turned
to Cazaux. He knew the terrorist respected
strength and military protocol, and so he
straightened his shoulders and said in a clear, steady
voice, "Permission to speak, Henri."
  "Of course, Harold," Cazaux said, nodding his
approval. "You have earned the right. I have been
remiss in not acknowledging your contribution
to this campaign. I was distru/l and wary of your
idea concerning using the stock and options markets
to raise money for our operations, but you have far exceeded
all expectations. I congratulate you, and I
admit that my hesitation about your plan was because of my
ignorance. Speak."
  "Thank you, Henri. I'll preface my
suggestion with the quartermaster's report, gentlemen:
we have almost ninety million dollars in cash or
liquid securities in our hands right now. The
options that will expire in the next three to five days
will net us another ten to twelve million--"
  "You're shitting me!" Ysidro cried
enthusiastically. "I don't believe it, Drip--
you really made that stock option shit work!"
  "This is by far the largest war chest we've ever
had," Lake went on.
  "The only payables we have right now is the
refurbishment and reregistration of the Shorts Sherpa
following Henri's Memphis mission.
  We're not just repainting it, of course, but we've
got to create new airworthiness certificates and
registration documents, and all that takes time and
money--and of course the prepurchase of the new
aircraft, weapons, and hardware for the
next mission.
  "But each securities transaction I
accomplish now is getting more and more attention, and it's
only a matter of time before someone starts a
Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.
  I'm not worried about that--the source of the money is
very well covered, and besides, everything I'm doing is
completely legal--but it will create a little attention,
and we can always do without that.
  But when we purchased the Airtech transport
we used on the Dallas raid, I'm sure our
paperwork was scrutinized by the FBI or the Marshals
Service. Any plane that even slightly appears
as if it might be used in a Henri Cazaux-style
raid will be subject to a more intensive search.
  In short, Henri, the heat's being turned up
everywhere--not just over the target, but in the brokerage
houses, banks, and the airplane dealers."
  "So what's the point, Drip?"
  "The point is, this might be a good time to take the
cash, fold up our tents, and get out of the country,"
Lake went on. "Our operating expenses from our
normal smuggling and tactical operations were about six
million dollars a year. That's half of what
we'll make on interest on our war chest
alone, without ever touching the principal. In addition,
I've established several iron-clad
legitimate business entities in seven countries
just in the past two weeks, all completely
untraceable to any of us. I've got entrees into the
defense and aviation ministries from countries like the
Czech Republic, Indonesia, and mainland
China, which means they will sell us weapons and
aircraft with a phone call and a wire from a bank that
uje own.
  "Henri, this is no shit, I swear it--I've
got us tapped into resources, government
officials, bank accounts, letters of credit, and
industry pipelines to over ten oillion dollars'
worth of airplanes, weapons, real estate,
anything you want," Lake went on excitedly.
  "We're players now, Henri--global,
international, zero-frontier players. With all due
respect, Henri, we're almost as big now as we
were as just Henri Cazaux's smuggling gang, and far
more legitimate-looking. We can pull the strings from
anywhere on the planet that has a phone--not even a
phone, man, as long as we could see the sky to aim
at a satellite--and we could get away from the
FBI and the regulators forever. And if we
turned our backs on it all, flew the Shorts
down to South America, bought a plantation outside
Caracas or Rio or Cartagena, we could live
like kings and have enough dough to set our grandchildren up in
business fifty years from now."
  Harold Lake had mesmerized this audience--he
even seemed to have Cazaux's full attention.
Tomas Ysidro said, "Hey, Henri, the Drip
is paintin' a pretty smooth picture right now.
I see stuff on the news about the feds closing in
on us--I don't see it happening, but, you know, it
kinda gets stuck in your brain, you know .. . ?"
  "Ysidro is babbling as usual," Townsend
said, "but I share his thoughts. In any previous
operation, Henri, we have never stayed in a country as
long as we have for this one. Staying on the move, and
especially outside the States, has helped us
keep out of the reach of the authorities. I feel
we've overstayed our welcome here, as well.
  Perhaps it is time to consider taking the cash and laying
low for a few weeks."
  To everyone's surprise, Cazaux nodded--the
sense of relief was obvious.
  "Very well," he said, crossing his arms on his
chest. "My adviser has indicated to me
that the authorities are indeed closing in on us, and so
we shall close our operation, disperse, and meet again in
a new location--after one more mission." He turned
to Lake and said, "Harold, you indicated that
Universal Equity still has two major companies
in America untouched--Westfall Air at
Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, and Sky
Partners Airlines in New York City."
  "Sure," Lake replied, "and they're trying
to make a comeback of sorts, using the public's
fear as a marketing tool. Universal Express
has moved most of the package stuff to other
airports, and the blowhard president, Mcsorley,
is promising to fly even if all the other carriers
close up shop during the air emergency. We
missed Westfall Charter when those dopers failed
to attack Dallas-Fort Worth, Henri, but
Westfall is small potatoes--Sky Partners
is the real prize.
  The stock is on the upswing--ripe for another
fall."
  "Then that will be our objective .. . our
secondary objective," Cazaux said. "And now
I will brief you on our primary objective-and
what I demand of all of you."
  After completely destroying a corner of a very
expensive Persian carpet in the billiards
room, Ted Fell leaned on the pool table, his
eyes filled with tears, trying to block out the
grisly image of a murdered man's heart being
dangled in front of his face. Cazaux had
butchered a man and brought his heart back,
obviously as a warning to everyone else. What was
really sick was that Mexican bastard Ysidro.
  Cutting out a man's heart and stuffing it into a
Ziploc bag was one thing--pulling it out and
gleefully examining it as if it were a pet mouse or
a newly discovered seashell was another thing. Fell
thought he had never seen anything as disgusting in his
life.
  A few guards checked Fell, but they ignored
him as the attorney continued to dry-heave in the
corner, chuckling at the beancounter's cowardice as
they walked away. The image would simply not go
away--Fell saw that gruesome piece of flesh
everywhere in his mind's eye. He finally stood upright
and tried to force fresh air into his lungs, noticing
that the front of his suit was stained with vomit.
  He left the billiards room to find a
bathroom and clean his suit, and perhaps get
some help in cleaning the room. It was obvious that
Henri Cazaux and most of the others were out of place
in that big New Jersey mansion--Cazaux looked
as if he belonged in a southeast Asia jungle or
an African swamp--but he still feared meeting the
wrath of Cazaux or Ysidro if they found the
mess he had made, so he thought he better clean
it up.
  Fell heard voices coming from the kitchen, but he
decided to avoid that place--the guards, most
likely on break or getting dry.
  He noticed what looked like a broom closet
at the top of the stairs, so he quietly stepped
upstairs. No guards were nearby to stop him. He
reached the top of the stairs and found some towels and
cleaning supplies, then went down the hallway to the
bathroom to wet the towels.
  He was about to enter the bathroom when he passed a
set of stairs leading up to the third floor--and he
heard a woman's faint sobs coming from upstairs.
  At first Fell told himself to forget what he just
heard, forget all about whoever was up there. He thought
that Cazaux probably didn't have a wife or
girlfriend--who in hell would want a psychopath like
Cazaux? Was she a captive? Some kind
of sex slave?
  Was she a hostage? In any case, he didn't
think Cazaux would take too kindly to someone
sneaking around his house. Fell heard a groan and a
labored cough--she obviously sounded hurt, perhaps
recovering from being strangled or hit. Beating up on
women was the mark of a coward--and so was terrorism.
Henri Cazaux fit both descriptions
perfectly. And what was Ted Fell made of? He
was either very brave or very stupid, because he found himself
quietly tiptoeing up the stairs and pushing open the
one door.
  The attic had been turned into a very nice little
studio apartment--but what else he found was not so
pretty. Fell saw a woman lying on her back
on the bed in the center of the apartment, her clothing
ripped away from her body, her breasts exposed,
her dress piled up around her waist, exposing her
crotch, her legs dangling off the side of the bed.
  She was facing away from him, so she could not see
him. Her dark hair was a tangled mess, her hands
and fingers were stained with .. .
  "It is not safe for you to be here," she said
suddenly. There was a slight pause while she
sniffed and let out a painful breath; then she
added, "Mr. Fell."
  Fell resisted the urge to run down the stairs and
back to the billiards room as fast as he could--
obviously he had made a lot more noise than he
thought he did, even though he had tried to be
quiet.
  But her shaking voice and trembling hands and
shoulders told him that she was in real trouble. "Who
are you?" he asked in a loud whisper.
  "How do you know my name? What happened to you? Was
it Cazaux?"
  "My name is not important," she replied
weakly. "I know all who come to this place, except
you, so you must be Mr. Lake's assistant, whom
I have not met. I .. ."
  She had tried to rise onto her elbows, but a
shot of pain had cut her off. Fell darted into the
room, closed the door, and sat on the bed beside her.
Her face had been savagely beaten, covered with
red and black bruises. Her nose was broken, and
it did not look like the first time it had been done. He
pushed her skirt back down over her knees, but
couldn't help noticing the blood that stained the
bedspread under her anus. "My God .. . the
sonofabitch .. ."" "He is no longer
in control of himself," the woman mumbled.
  "The dark master controls him."
  "Cazaux? Who controls Cazaux .. . ?"
  "I tried to stop him," she said. "I tried
to tell him that he still had a choice, that he can still
control his destiny. But his soul has been taken.
He no longer listens to human reason."
  "Forget Cazaux," Fell said. "Is there a
way out of here? I think you need medical attention."
  "I cannot leave here," the woman said. "There is
no way out for me while Henri lives--but you can
leave." Her eyes no longer reflected the
extreme pain she was suffering, but locked firmly
on his, riveting him. A plan came instantly
to mind--she just hoped she'd be there to watch it. "You
are my only hope. You must stop Cazaux before he
flies this last mission."
  "What last mission? What do you mean?" The thought
of he, Ted Fell, trying to stop Cazaux from doing
anything was both laughable and terrifying. "Hey,
I'm trying to help you, miss, but I'm not going
to try to get in Cazaux's way. The last guy who
crossed Cazaux--well, there's a human heart
on the coffee table downstairs.
  I'd like to keep mine for a while longer."
  Vega didn't know about the heart, and she had
to force herself to suppress a smile. My God,
Henr really has gone over the edge!
  She hoped she could see the heart, see the knife
that he did it with, maybe listen to him describe how
he did it. But she forced a horrified expression
on her face. "Ted Fell, listen to me," the
woman said.
  "You must kill Henri Cazaux."
  "You must do it, Ted Fell," she said. She
reached under her mattress and came up with a tiny
.22 caliber automatic pistol. "I'm too
weak to do it. If he comes back for me, he'll
kill me, I know he will." Vega let the remains
of her blouse fall away, revealing her breasts
to him, and she noticed with a tiny smile that, despite
her face and the beating she took, he was admiring her
chest. A typical male, she thought, wanting
to suck tits and screw pussy without one single thought
regarding the woman. He was going to do just fine, she
thought--this little tit-sucking weasel was going to pull a
gun on Henri Cazaux, and when he did she was
going to watch Henri, Townsend, and Ysidro chop
him up into fish food. She pressed the gun into his
hands. "You must do it, Ted .. . for me.
You want to help me, don't you?"
  She brushed her breasts against him, averting her
eyes and letting a few wisps of hair fall
innocently across her face--and he was hooked.
  He took the pistol, hefted it, then set his
jaw and stuck the pistol in his pants pocket.
Even if he never pulled it out, Vega thought,
someone would notice it. She would be listening, and the first
sense of commotion she heard, she'd rush downstairs
and hopefully be just in time to watch. "Go, Ted.
Save me--please!" She pushed him off the bed with
surprising strength, but Fell didn't need too
much prompting--he was already racing for the door. "Do not
stop! was Her voice was cut off by another fit of
coughing, but by then Fell was taking the steps three at
a time, landing on each step on tiptoes.
  He reached the first floor without anyone seeing him.
He glanced back upstairs, wondering if any
guards were chasing him or had heard him stomping down
the stairs, and had just walked past the double doors to the
billiards room when he ran headlong into Thomas
Ysidro. The Mexican executioner pushed him
away, but held him tightly by his jacket. "Where
the fuck did you go, asshole?"
  Ysidro growled.
  Fell's mouth flapped open and closed like a dying
fish--he was so scared he couldn't answer.
Ysidro's expression went from suspicious
to angry to murderous, and he grabbed Fell by the
lapel and pulled him closer, shaking him like a
dirty throw-rug. "I said, where the fuck did you
.. . ?" Then he noticed the green and yellow stain
on Fell's shirt, then sniffed at the same
smell coming from the billiards room.
  With Fell still in his grasp, he peeked around the
corner and saw the mess on the carpet. "Shit,
bean-counter, you barred on my fuckin" rug!"
  "I .. . I couldn't help it .. ."
  "Well, clean it the fuck up!" Ysidro said,
pushing Fell onto the floor in front of the
vomit. Fell waited for the follow-up kick, but
all he heard was another "Sheer-it" as Ysidro
left. Fell found some rags in the cue rack on
the wall, and used his hankerchief to mop up the rest
and take out as much of the stain as he could. He stayed
on his hands and knees after cleaning up the mess,
thinking hard.
  Could he do it? Could he kill Henri Cazaux?
No doubt the world would be better without that
psychopathic woman-beating bastard, but
certainly Ysidro and the others would execute him right
away .. . or would they? It did not take a
genius to see the power struggle going on in
Cazaux's organization. Maybe he'd be doing
them a big favor .
  .
  . yes, maybe .. .
  "Hey, asshole, on your feet," Fell
heard a voice say behind him.
  He struggled to his feet, feeling his knees
wobble and his fingers shake. The guard had a small,
mean-looking submachine gun in his hands, held at
port-arms in front of him. He noticed the
vomit on Fell's jacket and sneered. "Back
in the other room, the others are leaving."
  Fell was prodded back into the foyer outside the
den where the meeting was held, only to find the meeting
breaking up and Cazaux's officers putting on
coats, preparing to depart. Fell caught
Cazaux's gaze on him, a mixture of hatred
and suspicion. Jesus, does he know I made
contact with his captive upstairs? But Cazaux's
eyes only glanced down at the vomit stain, and his
eyes told Fell that he was being dismissed as too
weak to be a threat to him. He was so smug,
so confident, ignoring the little weak guys simply because
they were smaller and less imposing. Cazaux was an
animal, a human animal.
  He deserved to die, the bastard, he deserved
to die, long and hard and painfully. Ysidro might
even reward him for daring to do something that he obviously
wanted very badly to do himself.
  But even more fearful than Cazaux's questioning stare was
Harold Lake's face--he looked horrified,
shocked, as white and colorless as if h into Fell
as Fell tried to help him on with his coat.
  "Harold, what is it?" he whispered as they
headed outside.
  "What's going on?"
  "Just go," Lake said. "Ou."
  "My briefcase," Fell said, hesitating as
long as he could.
  "I'll get Fell went back into the conference
room for the briefcase and picked it up. He was
alone. The nearest guard was back in the hallway,
almost completely out of sight, and Henri Cazaux was
standing on the opposite side of the room, his back
turned to him, looking out the window. The perfect
opportunity. There was an inside slit in his
raincoat that allowed Fell to access his
pants pocket.
  Fell reached into the slit, then into his pants
pocket .. .
  "Look out, Henri!" he heard a voice--a
female voice--shout behind him.
  "Look out, he's got a gun!"
  Cazaux spun, crouched, a knife appearing in
his hands as if by magic.
  Fell turned. It was the woman, dressed in a
red silk robe, the blood cleaned off her face,
even wearing makeup. She was pointing toward him.
Cazaux hesitated, seeing who it was threatening him,
then he chuckled softly and lowered the knife from its
throwing position.
  Fell was confused--why was she doing this?
  Three guards pounced on Fell, wrestling him
to the ground, pinning his arms behind his back so hard and so
high that Fell thought they'd snap off. Hands were all
over him, searching him, then dragging him up to his
feet before Cazaux. The big Belgian mercenary
looked at Fell with an amused expression.
  "Nothing, Captain," the guards said. Ted
Fell had lost his nerve after rushing downstairs and
had placed the gun underneath a large tree planter
in the second-floor hallway. The
guards released Fell, then turned toward the
dark-haired woman. She looked momentarily
confused.
  "He is not armed, Madame Vega," Cazaux
said. "Why did you think he had a gun?"
  "I .. . I'm sorry, I guess I'm just
too keyed up," she said.
  "I've never seen this man before. He scared me."
  "He was just leaving," Cazaux said. He gave
Fell one last menacing look, and Fell felt
sweat pop out on his forehead and felt urine
uncontrollably rush out of his bladder. He
barely caught it in time before he wet himself. Fell
was escorted out of the house by the two guards and
virtually dumped into the duallie with lake.
  Lake refused--or was unable--to say anything
until they were outside and back into the six-passenger
pickup with the security glass between the front and rear
seat closed. Fell waited several minutes for his
heart to start hammering in his chest. The damn bitch
tried to get me killed, Fell thought. Who in
hell is she his But soon the curiosity of what was
happening with his boss, Lake, finally took over.
  "Harold, what happened? What's going on?"
  "We're folding up shop," Lake said
finally. "First thing tomorrow morning, we put stop orders
on all outstanding contracts, negotiate for cash
closings. We need to arrange for a cash-asset
transfer--probably use Win Millions
Casino again."
  "Sure, sure, Harold, they'll give us
whatever we want," Fell said.
  "So we're bugging out? Time to see what Brazil
is like in the wintertime?"
  "We'll be out of the country by tomorrow night .. . two
nights, tops.
  While Henri is counting the cash, we'll be on
the Challenger to Bela Horizonte."
  "Great, great," Fell said. That was a relief--
the farther he was away from that dark-haired bitch, the
better. "I've been checking on the plane and the
crew every day for a week, making sure they're ready
to blast off; Flight plans are no problem if
you're leaving the country.
  One stop in Belize for gas and maybe a few
senoritas, and we're out of here with twenty million
dollars in cash at our disposal, all nice and
safe in numbered bank accounts. We'll live like
kings in that little town, what's its name, Abaete or
something .. . ?"
  Lake wasn't sharing in the image one bit--in
fact, he looked as if he were turning to stone, or
wax. "What the hell's the problem, Harold?
  Cazaux will never find the cash we've been
siphoning off from the Asian contracts. Did he
accuse you of something? What--"
  "There's going to be one more operation," Lake said.
"One more big strike ..
  ."
  "As long as we're out of it, I don't really
care," Fell said.
  "We close up shop and we're done .. .
right?" Lake said nothing else during the rest of the
ride to the garage, where their limo was waiting for them.
The image of them relaxing on the red-tiled veranda of
their two-thousand-acre ranch in central Brazil was
gone .. . replaced by the woman's struggled plea
to stop Cazaux.
  Obviously he was planning something so deadly, so
monstrous, so devastating, that not even Lake could
talk about it.
  It didn't matter, Fell decided. In two
days they were going to be out of the country. Twenty
million dollars and a Gulfstream bizjet bought a
lot of comfort, especially in Brazil--it
bought a lot of forgetfulness, too. He was going to have
to forget the woman's piercing eyes, her plea that
reached down to the core of his soul .
  .
  .
  .. . and remember, if he could ever forget, what
happened to experienced mercenary soldiers who
crossed Henri Cazaux. Remember that bloody
bag, the black mass dangling from an artery,
remember Ysidro'ssi Springfield,
Massachusetts, have? Silence and a life of
luxury in equatorial Brazil, or go to the
authorities and face Henri Cazaux, Tomas
Ysidro, Gregory Townsend, and almost certain
death.
  Ted Fell didn't need to be a Harvard Law
School grad to figure that one out.
  Mojave, California Two Days Later
"They're coming in here faster than we can handle them,"
the man said. "I'll be of any help I can.
  You have your pick of the litter, I can assure you."
  Harold Lake did not say anything--he was too
surprised to speak.
  He was looking not at a puppy kennel or
thoroughbred racehorse stable, but at two
mile-and-a-half-long lines of airliners--all
shapes and sizes, in various states of repair but
all generally in very good condition.
  It seemed every airline in the world had an
airplane here, and the paint jobs looked brand new.
Even Ted Fell, Lake's assistant, who
hated airplanes and anything having to do with flying, was
suitably impressed. "My God, I never
dreamed anything like this existed," he said, gaping at
what he saw.
  "I imagine most folks don't," the facility
manager responded, smiling at Lake's amazed
expression as they drove down a taxiway in a
thankfully well-air-conditioned Range-Rover.
"Mojave Commercial Air Services used to be
a honeyard for airliners--much like Davismonthan
Air Force Base in Tucson stores and parts-out
old military aircraft.
  We've cut up and recycled over ten thousand
aircraft since we opened back after World War
Two.
  "But airliners last longer and are much more
expensive, so when times get tough and nobody's
flying, companies send their planes out here for
storage--low humidity, not much rain,
pretty good conditions for outdoor storage. Some
companies buy them and immediately fly them directly out
here for storage. When they signed the contract to buy
them three years ago, the industry wasn't in quite
bad shape. Now they own it, and it's a big
investment, but it wouldn't pay to fly it half-filled
with passengers, so they bring it out here for storage.
  The industry will bounce back, and when it does these
babies will be put on the line." He motioned to one
airplane, obviously the size of a DC-10 or
L-1011, completely cocooned in shiny
aluminized plastic.
  "We used to just fly them in, weatherize them, and
let "em sit, but more companies want a bit more
protection from blowing sand and moisture, so we
shrink-wrap some planes."
  "That's shrink-wrapped?" Fell asked.
  "You're kidding!"
  "Nope. Shrink-wrapped just like a copy of
Playboy on the magazine racks," the manager
said. "Actually, it's much better than that.
  It takes only a couple hours to apply it, and
it protects the planes against most every hazard.
It's completely sealed--all the air is pumped
out, so it's impervious to the elements. A
plane in shrinkwrap like that will be as good as new ten
years from now--we guarantee it, in fact. No
mildew, no critters, no corrosion."
  "Incredible," Lake exclaimed. The array of
planes out here was amazing--he saw quite a few
MD-11 and Boeing 757 and 767 airliners, the
cream of the airline crop, sitting here idle. "There
has to be four or five billion dollars"
worth of machines sitting out here."
  "Pretty good guess, Mr. Lake," the
manager said. "The actual figure is
three-point-seven-two-billion dollars--we
keep a weekly tally." He pulled up to a
plane and put the Range-Rover in park.
  "Here's 331. We started the prepurchase
inspection as soon as your people showed up. Isn't she
a sweetheart?"
  Lake distrusted and usually discounted anyone who
talked about inanimate objects in human terms,
and he was proved correct on this one. They were
looking at an Aeritalia G222 twin
turboprop heavy transport plane, and it was a
short, squat-looking airplane with a tall tail
and high-mounted wings--not exactly a "sweetheart"
unless you were into ugly-looking planes. This
one was painted up with high-visibility
white-and-orange stripes, with the words SISTEMA
AERONAUTICO ANTI-INCENDIO painted on both
sides. Lake opened a thick information folder on
the plane: "This is a 1988-model
water-bomber? It looks in great condition."
  "The G222 is the finest pure water-bombing
aircraft on the market today," the facility
manager said. "These actually have the newer uprated
Rolls-Royce Tyne turboprops, so they each
put out closer to four thousand shaft horsepower instead
of the normal three thousand four hundred. She's also
been strengthened to pull over four Gs instead of the
normal two-point-eight--pretty important
when your clients are diving into the bottom of a deep
canyon chasing that last stubborn torcher. I've
got to hand it to you water-bomber guys-you got balls
the size of coconuts. Which group did you say you were
representing?"
  "I'm acting as the finance manager for a broker
representing Walter Willis and Company,"
Lake said. "The G222 and any other aircraft
I can find within the next thirty days will be going
to his ranch in Colorado for modification and
training--and possibly go operational if this
summer stays hot and dry like this." It was all a
lie, of course, but he had laid enough groundwork over
the past few days, with this deal andwitha half-dozen
others, to make the fiction work unless a real
in-depth investigation was begun. Years ago,
Lake, working with the skinflint president of
Universal Express, Brennan Mcsorley
himself, had helped finance the lease of several aerial
firefighting aircraft to Walter Willis, the
biggest private aerial firefighting company in the
world. Lake had been involved in several other
financing deals since, so he had the credentials
to visit this place in Mojave and talk turkey.
  "I've never worked with Mr. Willis himself," the
facility manager said. "How is the old buzzard
doing?"
  Fell looked at the guy, then at Lake, and
he could immediately sense that his boss's mood had
suddenly turned as dark as the inside of a thunderstorm.
He stepped back a pace to watch the fireworks ..
.
  "He's doing fine," Lake said tightly. He
glanced at the manager, who was suddenly eyeing him
with a great deal of suspicion, then added, "Walter
is doing fine--for a guy who's been dead for
eleven fucking months, you cold-hearted son of a
bitch!" The manager's jaw dropped open in
surprise, and Lake used his dumbfounded
expression a and the Universal investor group own the
company; I was an usher at Brad's wedding last
january in Aspen. Do you know the Willises?"
  "Ah, no, but you see .. ."
  "Then why did you ask about Walter? My friend
Brad almost had a nervous breakdown at the death of
his father." lake did not know Brad Willis
except by his ultra-irresponsible playboy
reputation--Brennan Mcsorley and Universal
got a good deal when they bought the company from Brad.
"And Walter was certainly not an "old buzzard"
when he died--he was only in his early sixties, in
the best physical condition of his life." Lake
turned toward the manager, enjoying watching the bastard
wilt under his glare. "Is this some kind of test,
Mr. Adams?"
  lake asked. "Are you actually testing me?"
  "I would never even consider.. ."
  "Sir, I do not have to submit to this," lake said,
truly indignant that this old bastard would dare to try
to clumsily trap him like that.
  "I can drop names all day to you, and you
might be impressed or you might not. But I let
my credentials, my reputation, and my money speak
for me, sir."
  "I assure you, Mr. Lake, I did not mean
to .. ."
  "As I recall, I deposited a certified
check in the amount of nine million dollars in your
bank account in Los Angeles two days ago,
along with enough credit references that my submission can be
measured by the pound. It took a staff of four two
days to complete it, working night and day." He reached
into his jacket breast pocket and withdrew an
envelope, opened it, and showed the contents to the
manager. "This is another certified check for
sixteen million four hundred thousand dollars,
made out to your company, with today's date, as the
second deposit for the two aircraft."
  Lake waited until he could see the facility
manager's eyes grow wide with surprise and want
--then crumpled the check up in his right hand, right in
front of the man's face. Lake held his clenched
fist with the check inside it up in the man's face
until he saw sweat pop out of his forehead. "I
am not accustomed to being treated like a teenager trying
to buy a bottle of cheap wine at the
Safeway, sir.
  Ted?"
  Fell turned to the Aeritalia G222, put
his fingers to his lips, and whistled. The three men he
had hired to do the prepurchase inspection on the
freighter looked up and turned toward him. "Pack
it up," he shouted. "The deal has been canceled."
  "Wait a minute, Mr. Lake," the manager
pleaded. "Hold on. It wasn't a test, I
swear it wasn't. I wouldn't do such a thing."
  "No, and after your company finds out what happened,
I would think you won't be selling too many
aircraft, either."
  "C'mon, Mr. Lake, I didn't mean
anything by it," the manager said.
  "It's all these federal boys out here--I guess
I started thinking like some bozo gumshoe
detective."
  Both Lake and Fell twisted their necks around
to stare at the manager when he mentioned "federal
boys." Fell shot a subdued, panicked look
at his boss, but Lake quickly regained his composure
and shot a warning glance at Fell, who turned
away and walked toward the G222 so he could
effectively hide his shocked expression.
  "Federal boys? What are you talking about?"
  "This place gets a visit by someone or other from
Los Angeles or Washington or Las Vegas
or Sacramento damned near every day," the facility
manager said. "I guess it has to do with that
terrorist that's dropping bombs on American
airports. The feds ask tricky questions all the
time, trying to trip you up, like I can hand Henri
Cazaux to them on some shiny silver platter."
  "I think that's the last straw," Lake said
quickly. "Federal agents, indeed! You're just trying
to pin your clumsy attempt at making me feel
uncomfortable on someone that doesn't exist."
  "No, Mr. Lake, they're here--look, there's
one now," the man said. He pointed at a dark
gray Chevrolet Caprice sedan cruising up and
down the flight line. "That's .. . damn, I can't
remember his name ..
  ."
  He fished around in a pocket and came up with a
business card.
  "Yeah, here he is--Timothy Lassen,
Deputy U.s. Marshal.
  Here's his card."
  Lake snatched the card away--he
didn't want to be so obviously upset, but a
thrill of panic had just settled into Lake's
brain, and he was no longer totally in control of
himself. Yes, the card said he was a U.s.
Marshal, from Sacramento .. . and now the man in the
Caprice had spotted him talking with the facility
manager and had turned in their direction.
  "Well .. . perhaps I've been a bit hasty,"
Lake said as the sedan approached. "I should've
realized you're under considerable scrutiny these days."
  "That is the truth, Mr. Lake, it certainly
is," the manager said, relieved that the sale would
actually go through. Lake motioned to Fell, who told
the inspectors to go back to work.
  "I will direct my bank to cut another check for
you--it'll take an extra day, I'm sure you
understand."
  "I certainly do, Mr. Lake," the manager
said, practically kissing Lake's hand in
gratitude. "And I sincerely apologize for my
behavior.
  I'm very, very sorry .. ."
  "I'd like nothing more to be said about it," Lake said,
adding a touch of his command voice into his request.
"My clients appreciate discretion as
well as efficiency. There will be questions about why the
transaction is to be delayed an extra day, and
that'll have to be handled."
  "You can count on me, Mr. Lake," the manager
said. "Don't worry about a thing." Just then the sedan
pulled up to them, and a tall, good-looking man a
bit older than Lake emerged. His plain
dark-gray suit coat was unbuttoned, revealing a
plain white shirt and plain dark-blue tie with
diagonal red stripes. The sun was hot and
merciless already that morning, but the man kept the
jacket on.
  "Excuse me, Mr. Fennelli, but how do I
get out of here? I'm lost already."
  "Easy enough, Agent Lassen," the facility
manager said, pointing southwest. "Just head for the gap
between the big hangars out there, you'll see the front
gate. Be sure to watch out for planes taxiing
around."
  "Got it," Lassen said. It was obvious that
Lassen didn't need any assistance getting off the
airport. He looked at Lake, and the investor
could practically see the marshal going through the mental
exercise taught to all law enforcement officers that
would imprint a man's face on their
memories for years. He held out a hand toward
Lake: "Hi. Tim Lassen--how're you doing?"
  "Harold Lake, Marshal Lassen," Lake
responded, shaking Lassen's hand.
  "My associate, Ted Fell." They shook
hands. "Mr. Fennelli tells me you're a
federal marshal," Lake said. He motioned to the
expanse of high desert and rocky mountains
surrounding Mojave Airport. "Seems like the
perfect setting for a marshal, like the Old West.
All you need is a horse and a big six-gun."
  Lassen chuckled easily and genuinely enough, but
his eyes never left Lake's. He said,
"Actually, you're pretty close, Mr.
Lake," Lassen said. "This area used to be one of the
roughest and toughest in the country. Claim jumpers,
fugitives on the run from justice, hijackers,
bank robbers .. . terrorists .. . the scum of the
earth always seemed to congregate around this area, as if
the desert would protect them from the law .. . This your
plane, Mr. Lake? It's Italian, isn't
it?"
  The federal agent eased into the questioning even more
smoothly and naturally than Lake had expected.
Lake responded, "No, it's not my
plane. I know very little about planes, actually."
  "Your plane, Mr. Fell?" Lassen asked,
turning toward Lake's assistant, who thought himself
completely out of the conversation.
  "No," Fell replied much too hastily, too
nervously. "Actually, I hate airplanes. I
have to practically be sedated into unconsciousness before
takeoff."
  "It's a beauty," Lassen said. "I don't
know too much about them, either, but of course the job
lately has introduced me to lots of different
kinds."
  "You're investigating the terrorist Cazaux,"
Lake said knowingly.
  "The lunatic who isn't satisfied with blowing
up one plane-he's got to b "Exactly,"
Lassen said. "This kind of plane, as you might know,
is just like the one Cazaux might use--big,
relatively inexpensive, heavy payload,
designed to drop things out the back. This is a fire
bomber, right?"
  "A water-bomber, to be exact," Lake
corrected him. "And yes, it is Italian. It
is used all over the world for firefighting, military
transport, even civilian and commercial
passengers. So how's the investigation going? You going
to catch that bastard yet?"
  "Oh, I think Cazaux will either slip away out
of the country, do something really stupid and get himself
caught, or one of his soldiers will rat him out for
money or to make a deal with prosecutors,"
Lassen said matter-of-factly.
  "You sound pretty sure of this," Lake
observed, trying to act disinterested.
  "I wish I could say that most crimes are
solved by expert, meticulous investigation by wise,
insightful, observant agents, but in fact most
crimes get solved because the bad guy screws up
.. . or someone very close to him turns him in."
He paused, his eyes affixing on Lake, and the
New York investor felt the first prickle of
perspiration on the back of his neck.
  "Most criminals, Mr. Lake, are dishonest,
egotistical, greedy slimeballs," Lassen
explained. "Many of the people that psychopaths like Henri
Cazaux surround themselves with are also slimeballs,
but they're violent or psychopathic as their boss--
they're usually motivated by greed, not by the thrill of
killing or some voice inside their head telling them
to kill. They are cowed by the psychopathic
leader into following him, even when the killing grows beyond
anything anyone could imagine.
  "But sooner or later it appears that the leader is
getting too far out of control, and the smart underling
realizes that he'd better cut and run and make a
deal with the authorities before everyone lands in prison
for life plus two hundred years--or dead. The
smart underling turns in the psychopath, gets a
reduced sentence or maybe even put in a Witness
Protection Program, and thanks his lucky stars
he saw the light before it was too late .. . I'm
sorry, I've been chatting on here.
  What is it you do, Mr. Lake?"
  At first Lake acted as if he didn't hear the
federal agent's question--and in fact he hadn't, because
he was too stunned by what Lassen had said. He had
precisely described the dilemma Lake was in.
  Cazaux was getting more and more violent every day,
urging his troops to take more chances, go to any lengths
to carry out his orders.
  Lake had been looking for his chance to scrape together
enough cash to disappear to a ranch in Brazil or
Thailand, but it seemed Cazaux was always around,
watching him, ordering him around. This trip was
exactly a case in point: Lake knew
nothing about doing prepurchase inspections on cargo
planes, but Cazaux had him come out here anyway
instead of just staying in his office and monitoring their
ever-growing portfolio of options contracts.
  They were making ten, sometimes fifteen million
dollars a day from their series of investments, and it
required careful study and analysis to keep it
all going. But Cazaux ordered him out here, and now
he was being confronted by a fed from Sacramento, a
damned fed who seemed to see right through him.
  "I'm a smart underling," Lake finally
responded with an easy smile, "and I work for a
broker who can really terrorize a tiramisu or
an apricot flambe if he sets his mind to it.
I'm going to turn him over to jenny Craig any
day now."
  The ploy thankfully worked--everyone laughed, and
Lassen finally disengaged his piercing gaze, laughed
loudly, and shook a finger at Lake as if to say,
Okay, okay, okay, you got me. "Hey, have a
great day, everyone, I've got a long drive
back to Sacramento ahead of me.
  Nice to meet all of you. Thanks again, Mr.
Fennelli." He shook hands with Lake and Fell
and headed back to his car, casually studying
the G222 as he did. He finally took off his
jacket just before getting into the sedan, and Lake
noticed he seemed to wear no gun.
  A pencil-pusher, Lake guessed, pressed
into field service in Hell's half-acre in
Mojave because the feds were stretched so thin.
  "Seems like a nice guy," Lake said
to Fennelli as the fed departed.
  "That's the most I've heard him say the whole
time he's been here, about four days now," Fennelli
replied. "Pokes around here and there, flies off,
shows up again a couple days later, never asks for
anything, pokes around some more, flies off again. That's
his Cheyenne over there."
  That made Lake relax a bit--the guy really
did seem like nothing but a pencil-pusher, not a real
investigator. But as soon as Lake took some
comfort in that thought, his mind went on the alert again.
  Lassen was a deputy U.s. Marshal--that was not
a ceremonial or political post. Lake wished
he had taken more time to study the fed better. He was
going to have Fell check him out.
  "I'll be returning to Los Angeles this
afternoon," Lake told Fennelli.
  "My staff will conclude the
transaction."
  "Yes, Mr. Lake," Fennelli said. He
extended a hand to Lake; he did not accept it.
"Everything will be ready for your ferry crews.
  If there's anything else you require, please
let me--"
  "All I require, Mr. Fennelli, is for
you to do your job," Lake said, "and to leave the
sleuthing to Deputy Marshal Lassen there."
  "Of course, Mr. Lake," Fennelli said
contritely. He led Lake and Fell back to the
Range-Rover. He started heading back toward the
flight-line offices where his customer's Learjet was
parked, then did a sudden one-eighty turn and headed
back down the flight line.
  "I'm sorry, Mr. Lake, I almost forgot,"
Fennelli said. "You'll be wanting to see your other
plane, I'm sure." Lake really didn't care
to see it, but he said nothing as Fennelli sped down
the row of airliners.
  It did not take long to reach it. "Here we are.
It looks like they're further along the prepurchase
inspection on this one."
  Lake found his legs and hands shaky as he stepped
out of the Land-Rover and looked up at the
huge aircraft before them. He glanced at Ted
Fell, and he was just as white-faced and nervous as his
boss.
  This had to be some kind of joke, Lake thought
bitterly. Henri Cazaux had issued his order that
he wanted this plane, and Lake had found him one
right away without really asking why he wanted it.
Now, seeing it like this, Lake understood exactly why
Cazaux wanted it.
  It was a Boeing 747-bjjF freighter, still in
Nippon Cargo Airlines livery, although the
markings on the vertical stabilizer from its former owner
had already been painted over in bright white. The
aircraft was a cargo-carrying version of the 747
airliner, with a huge nose loading door hinged at the
top just below the flight deck, which opens out and up, like
a huge sun visor. Almost two hundred thousand
pounds of cargo could be rolled into the cavernous cargo
bay through the front or through large side doors.
"It's a beauty, all right," Fennelli was saying.
"JA8167 is one of the earlier models, built
in 1980. Relatively low-cycle airframe,
treated fairly well in over ten years of service
although it's had its share of short fields and
tropical weather. It's still got its
RB211 engines, so its max payload is about
ten percent less than if it had JT9DS or
CF6So, but it's got its quiet kits
installed and it's fully certified for Stage Three
noise level operations, so you can fly it anywhere.
You got yourself one fine bargain. Who's going to do the
paint job on it?"
  "Excuse me?"
  "The paint work," Fennelli said. "Your ferry
crew indicated that its first stop is the paint and mod
shop. Where are you taking it?
  You know, we do a really fine job of configuring
your bird to your exact specifications. Since
you're a customer, of course, we can offer you a
substantial discount. Nobody does a better
paintjob on large aircraft like Mojave.
Please consider it, Mr. Lake."
  Damn flyboys, Lake cursed silently. The
stupid bastards that Cazaux and Townsend were digging
out of the woodwork to fly these missions had real big
mouths. The modifications and paintjob were going to be
done at one of four facilities already hired to do the
job--Little Rock, Arkansas; Salina,
Kansas; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; or
Newark, New Jersey, depending on which
had all the necessary personnel under the least
surveillance by the authorities. Fennelli would
obviously want the job badly, so he might try
to contact some of the names in the application to ask them
directly. Lake had sewn up most of those
traps so Fennelli might not get anywhere--but then
again, he might if he tried hard enough.
  "I'm afraid that's up to the buyer, Mr.
Fennelli, and he hasn't confided in me about his
plans for the airplanes," Lake said. "But I will
certainly pass along your offer."
  Lake couldn't have been more relieved to get on the
Learjet and head back toward Los Angeles.
  "Ted, get on the damned phone and contact the
ferry crews," Lake ordered. "Tell them that if
they don't keep their mouths shut from now on, I will
personally see to it that Cazaux deals with them.
  Then I want--"
  "Harold, it's not a good idea to use the
Flitephone for something like that," Fell interrupted.
"The phone on the airplane has to go through a
U.h.f radio station before it hooks into the landline
phone system. It's worse than a cellular
phone system--everybody with a thirty-dollar
scanner can listen in."
  "We're still using the secure phone system and the
dead-drop line, aren't we? his
  "Yes, but I'm not so sure how well it works
over an A.r.i.n.c network." The scrambled
phone system was a simple but usually very effective
analog voice-scrambling system that would protect
against unauthorized recording and casual
surveillance; the dead-drop line was an 800
number that tied into the local and long-distance phone
lines so all calls made would appear to go only
to the 800 number, not to any particular phone or
person. Fell knew that sometimes calls from the
plane were not scrambled, or could not be descrambled
on the other end, because of the properties of the additional
Aeronautical Radio, Inc radio link.
  "The damned system cost well over a thousand
dollars a month to operate--it better work,"
Lake said. "I need the bank to cut a
replacement check for Fennelli, and I want
to make sure the taps on Universal's branch
offices and to Worthington Enterprises broker age
are in place--if Fennelli tries to contact them
directly, I need to know about it. Get on it,
Ted, right now." Lassen, in a Piper Cheyenne
II turboprop plane shuttling
northward to visit another airport, was undoing
another button of his shirt to try to get a bit
cooler when his transportable phone insistently
beeped at him. He plugged his headset into the
unit, pressed the green SYNC button, and
waited until the scramble-synchronization
circuits between the caller and his unit agreed and
allowed the call to connect. When it did a few
seconds later, he heard a tone and responded,
"Sweeper."
  "Sweeper, this is Peepshow," came the reply.
"Peepshow" was the tactical mission commander aboard
an RC-12Knowledge Guardrail communications and
intelligence aircraft. Because cellular and radio
communications were difficult to maintain so far out away
from large cities, federal agents involved in
special investigations in remote areas often set
up communications relays, which allowed them to maintain
constant contact.
  One such communications relay system was the
U.s. Army's Guardrail system, which was a
modified Beech Super King Air turboprop
plane loaded with communications and signals
intelligence equipment. Along with providing a
secure, efficient communications link,
Guardrail could also eavesdrop on radio,
TV, cellular, telephone, and data
communications for a hundred miles in any direction,
and could break in on conversations or broadcast on
civil channels or frequencies. "We got some
information on your subject."
  "Stand by one." Lassen pulled out a personal
digital assistant computer, created a new note
file, and readied his electronic stencil.
  "Go ahead."
  "Your target filed an I.f.r flight plan
direct Santa Monica Airport," the
tactical mission commander reported. "Normal
air traffic control communications. We monitored
three separate radiotelephone calls via
A.r.i.n.c Mojave to a WATS number.
Do you need the number?
  Over."
  "Let me guess," Lassen said, retrieving
another note file from the P.d.a and reading off
an 800 number.
  "The same," Peepshow responded. "The
conversation was scrambled, but the A.r.i.n.c
transmission was garbled and they had to repeat the
password sequence several times. Finally,
your target ordered the WATS operator to turn off
the scrambler so he could log on to the service.
  We copied the ID number and password."
Peepshow passed Harold Lake's service ID
number and password to Lassen. It would probably not
do too much good--Lake would undoubtedly change the
password at his first opportunity. "We copied
several phone numbers, account numbers, and what
appear to be code names before they scrambled the
transmission again." The tactical mission commander
passed that information to Lassen. "In addition, we go
as they shut it off and then turned it back on again, so
we can probably give you their scrambler's
algorithm to plug into your descrambler once we
get back on the ground. That's about all. Over."
  "Great work, Peepshow," Lassen said.
"Sweeper out." Well, it didn't prove too
much, but it was a start. Using blind phone drops was not
illegal--blind or dead drops prevented someone from
knowing what number was called--although it looked very
suspicious. It was going to take time to check out all
these names, and he had six other airports between
Mojave and Reno to check out. He decided
to transmit his notes from the P.d.a via his
radiotelephone back to his office in
Sacramento so his staff could get to work on it; using
Guardrail, the task took only a few moments.
  Harold Lake and Ted Fell were two new names
in this investigation, so this trip may not have been a
total bust. Two guys from New York who
admitted not knowing that much about planes, traveling
all the way out to Mojave, California, to buy
two very large transport planes. It might
take a warrant for Fennelli to give him any
information on Lake, his company, his financial
institutions, and the persons he worked for.
  With a little push and some carefully veiled threats,
Lassen was sure that Fennelli would easily roll
on Lake or anybody else and hand over the
files on Lake. But if Fennelli was smart and
called in his attorney, Lassen would get into hot
water with the U.s. Attorney, that avenue of
information would snap shut, and, if he was dirty,
Lake would disappear.
  More pieces to the puzzle, Lassen thought--a little
patience and determination, and eventually the pieces of
this puzzle would start fitting together. Harold Lake
was being evasive, and Lassen's instincts told him
Lake was dirty. Meanwhile, there were still a thousand more
pieces of the puzzle to examine.
  rart 4 Atlantic City International
Airport That Night November-Juliet-641
flight, report altitude passing, radar
contact, climb and maintain one-zero thousand." A
few seconds later, on the same frequency, he
heard, "Lead, give me a few knots, okay?"
followed by a loud feminine voice in his headset that
seductively said, "Caution! Caution!"
  Major Greg Mundy shook himself alert--as
intended, Bitching Betty had that effect on guys.
The feminine audio "caution" warning in his F-16
A.d.f Fighting Falcon air defense fighter
was better known as Bitching Betty, a computerized
female voice that calls the pilot's attention to a
problem in the aircraft; the warning was repeated
visually in his heads-up display with a large flashing
CAUTION message in the center.
  The male voice just before Bitching Betty's was from
Mundy's wingman , Captain Tom Humphrey,
who was apparently having trouble closing in on his
leader and was asking Mundy to pull off a little power.
  Mundy pinched his nose through his oxygen mask and
blew against his nostrils to help clear his head--knowing
full well that he was just blowing the shit in his head
further in, which wasn't going to help later
on--and checked around the cockpit. He finally
realized he was passing three hundred knots
indicated airspeed in his F-16, still in
zone-five afterburner--and he still had his landing gear
down.
  He immediately flipped the gear handle up, pulled
the throttle back to military power, and then flipped
his oxygen panel supply lever to OXYGEN
100% to get a shot of pure oxygen into his
lungs.
  "November-Juliet-641 flight of two
departing A-City, passing five for ten thousand,
check," he radioed, realizing he had not checked in
with Atlantic City Approach Control either.
  "Two," Captain Tom Humphrey
responded. "Tied on radar, three miles."
Good wingmen rarely said more than their formation position
on the radios; Humphrey was fairly new in the
unit, having come directly from undergraduate
pilot training, Fighter Lead-In, and F-16
Air Defense Fighter training directly to the
New Jersey Air National Guard. Being a new
guy, he was still a bit wordy on the radios--that would
pass soon, Mundy thought.
  It was a big, big mistake to do this
flight, Mundy told himself.
  Members of the 119th Fighter Squadron "Red
Devils" of the New Jersey Air National
Guard, Mundy and five other F-16
A.d.f fighter crews had been flying six
straight days of air defense alert since the
terrorist emergency, pulling "round-the-clock
four-on, eight-off shifts out of Atlantic City
International. But a flu bug was starting to make its
way through the fighter group, and two pilots
assigned to air defense duties in the
Philadelphia Class B airspace had gone
DNIF-DUTIES Not Involving Flying, which with this
flu meant little more than stay in bed--so the other
crews were on four-on, four-off shifts.
  In addition to feeling the first few chills and achiness
of an oncoming bout of the flu, Mundy and his fellow
Falcon pilots were just plain exhausted, and it was
starting to show in his flying.
  "November-Juliet-641," Atlantic
City Approach Control radioed, "have your wingman
squawk standby when he gets within two miles of you.
  Passing ten thousand feet, contact Washington
Center, button eight."
  "641 copies all, check."
  "Two."
  With the gear properly up and locked, it didn't
take long to climb through ten thousand feet on their
way to fifteen thousand feet, and Mundy took his
wingman over to Washington Air Route Traffic
Control Center's VHF frequency and checked
in. They were almost immediately shuttled off to their
U.h.f tactical frequency, and shortly
made contact with Liberty-90, their AWACS
controller for the next four hours. The E-3Can
AWACS radar plane was orbiting over
Allentown, Pennsylvania, about one hundred
miles to the north, providing enhanced south as
Richmond, Virginia, as far north as Boston.
Having an AWACS radar plane in the northeast
United States was not as critical as in the
midwest or western United States. Because of the
sheer density of airports, ground-based radar
coverage was so extensive in the northeast that any
aircraft flying higher than two or three
hundred feet aboveground was in radar contact with some
FAA agency.
  First order of business was an air refueling, out
over the ocean about fifty miles east of Long
Branch, New Jersey--the two
F-16 Fighting Falcons would top off from the
aerial refueling tankers at least three times
during their four-hour patrol. The night was clear and
beautiful, visibility about a hundred miles; the
lights of New York City, Newark, Long
Island, Trenton, Wilmington, Camden,
Philadelphia, and even Allentown were all
clearly visible. Mundy's wingman picked out the
tanker's powerful recognition lights a few
moments before the radar locked on, and they set up for the
air refueling.
  They were going to refuel in an "anchor," a
small, tight oval pattern in which the aircraft
would be in a turn for half of the contact time.
  The flight of two F-16's approached the
KC-135 Stratotanker from one thousand feet below
the tanker's altitude, and as Mundy closed within
five miles he made sure his pre-contact
checklists were completed and turned all his attention
to the rendezvous. He checked his blue RDY light
to the right of the heads-up display, meaning that the slipway
door was open, the fuel system was depressurized,
the slipway lights were on, and the system ready for
refueling.
  "November-Juliet flight, five
miles," he called. He had the tanker's lights
clearly in view, and there was no chance of flying through
any clouds and losing sight of him, so he turned his
attack radar to STANDBY to keep from spraying the
tanker with electromagnetic energy.
  "November-Juliet flight cleared
to pre-contact position, One-five ready," the
tanker's boom operator radioed. Mundy, with
Humphrey on his le tanker's rotating beacon.
"One-Five coming left." The tanker's wingtip
lights rolled gently left. Mundy used the
left turn to "cut the corner" and speed up the
closure, and he carefully guided himself onto the
white light at the tip of the air refueling boom
trailing down below the tanker's tail.
  The left turn pointed them north toward Long
Island. The lights of New York that were so
beautiful just a few minutes ago were serious
distractions now, and Mundy had to concentrate hard
on the tanker's wingtip lights to tell how much the
tanker was turning--his visual horizon was gone.
"Halfway through the turn," the tanker pilot
radioed.
  oon, Mundy and Humphrey had moved to within
fifty feet of the aerial refueling
boom, slightly low, and they rolled out of the turn
heading south. "641 stabilized pre-contact,
ready," Mundy radioed.
  "64"-s cleared to the wing," the boom operator
radioed, and Humphrey moved away from Mundy and
took a position just off to the left and behind the
tanker's left wing. "641, cleared to the contact
position, One-Five ready."
  "641, contact," Mundy responded as the
nozzle clunked into the F's air refueling
receptacle. The director lights, which were two
rows of colored lights along the tanker's belly
that graphically depicted the limits of the air
refueling boom, came alive, showing him slightly
low and slightly behind the center of the boom's
envelope. He began maneuvering to correct, not
really moving the stick but "willing" the fighter to the
correct position--the F-16 was far too nimble
for a pilot to make any huge corrections,
especially flying five miles per minute just a
few feet from another aircraft. He stole a quick
peek at the fuel quantity gauge to the right of his
right knee and watched the forward and aft fuel
quantity pointers creep clockwise and the fuel
totalizer rolling upwards.
  "One-Five coming left," the tanker pilot again
reported. Mundy turned his attention back to the
tanker--and the world started to spin on him.
  "641, down two .. . 641, down four .. .
come left, 641 ..
  ."
  Mundy thought that he was in a tight left diving
spiral, and he instinctively tried to compensate
by rolling right and climbing.
  The combination of the left turn, no visual
horizon, and his head movement to the right to check the
fuel gauge caused the "spins."
  He recognized it, hit the NWS A/R
DISC MSL STER button on the outside of his
control stick, pushed the stick forward, and
transitioned to his heads-up display to get his
bearings back.
  "One-Five, disconnect," the boom operator
reported.
  "641, disconnect," Mundy confirmed. His first
priority was separation.
  He descended a few hundred feet and pulled
a little power back.
  His head was still telling him he was in a hard left
diving deathspiral, but for now his hands were
believing his eyes, and his eyes were watching the flight
instruments, which were telling the truth.
  "Ah .. . roger, I got about three thousand
pounds, fuel transfer looks good, let's get
642 on the boom to make sure he can get his
gas, then I'll cycle back on to top off."
  It was a pretty weak excuse--boom
operators could recognize the onset of spatial
disorientation and were usually quick to eitler call a
disconnect or guide the receiver pilot back--but
everyone allowed Mundy to keep his pride. "Rrrr
.. . roger, 641," the boom operator
responded, his voice telling everyone that he knew
what was really happening. "You're cleared to the right
wing." When Mundy was out of view of the boom
operator, he called, "642, cleared to the contact
position, One-Five ready."
  It was a tremendous relief to climb safely
away from the tanker.
  Once safely on the tanker's wingtip, flying
very loose relaxed formation, Mundy dropped his
oxygen mask, found a handkerchief in his left
flight suit leg pocket, blew his nose, then
massaged his sinuses to try to clear his head. No
damn good. He had no choice--he
retrieved a tiny bottle of nasal spray from his
left leg pocket.
  Flight surgeons would argue, but the fighter
pilot's unwritten but widely followed credo
was, "Don't Hesitate: Self-Medicate."
  The secure-voice U.h.f radio crackled
to life: "November-Juliet641 flight,
Control, say status."
  "641 in the green, eight-point-one," Mundy
replied. He was about three thousand pounds shy of a
full fuel load. "64"-s on the boom."
  Actually, Humphrey was having just as much trouble
as Mundy did staying on the boom, but that was part of the
new-guy jitters as well.
  Humphrey was a good stick, a good wingman.
  "We're tracking a pop-up target about one
hundred and twenty miles bull's-eye," the
controller said. "Bull's-eye," the navigation
reference point for the air intercepts, was Atlantic
City International. "Too far out for a good track.
We're doing a manual groundspeed, and he's gone
from two-forty to about three hundred in the past few
minutes. Better top off and stand by to go take a
look."
  "641 copies." Mundy knew that the
AWACS controllers had three minutes from first
detection to decide if an unknown aircraft was a
hostile or not--that's how much time Mundy had to get
his gas.
  He rocked his mike button forward to the VHF
channel: "642, I need to cycle back on.
What's your status?"
  At that moment the boom operator reported,
"Forward limit disconnect, 642." The boom
nozzle popped free of the receptacle on the
F's spine behind the cockpit, the lights
illuminating a brief spray of fuel vapor.
Humphrey had slid in so far that his F's
vertical stabilizer was dangerously close to the
Stratotanker's tail. He descended slightly
and quickly backed away.
  "I'm showing ten-point-one," Humphrey
radioed. "One more plug and I should be full."
  "Better let me get in there, combledb," Mundy
said. "We might have visitors."
  "Roger," Humphrey acknowledged. "Clearing
to the left wing."
  "Copy, 642, clear to the tanker's left
wing." As Humphrey moved away from the boom, the
boom operator said, "641, cleared to the
contact position, One-Five ready."
  "641, moving in .. ."
  "Taking fuel, 641, no leaks" Mundy was
doing pretty well this time--in fact, he was so
steady, and concentrating so hard on staying that way, that
a new problem cropped up: autokinesis. The
green "forwardstaft" director light suddenly
seemed to move, but not up and down along the row of
director lights, but in a slow clockwise
spiral.
  Mundy knew what it was--a form of spatial
disorientation when a stationary point of light would appear
to move by itself, following tiny movements of the
eyeballs. He tried hard not to follow the light,
but there was no way of stopping the slight, almost
subconscious commands to go to the flight controls.
  "641, stabilize .. . down four .. ."
  It was no use--the spinning was getting worse by the
second.
  Mundy hit the disconnect button just as the
director light hit the aft limit: "641,
disconnect .. ."
  "641, breakaway, breakaway, breakaway!"
the boom operator shouted on the radio. Mundy's
reaction was automatic: throttle
to idle, nose down, positive rate of descent.
He glanced up and saw the boom operator's
observation window just a few scant feet away--he
had come just a few milliseconds from hitting the
tanker. The tanker pilot had cobbed his four
throttles to military power and hauled back on the
stick at the "breakaway" call, and they had still
avoided hitting each other by less than a yard.
  Get on the instruments, Mundy commanded himself. The
sudden deceleration was causing his head to spin
downwards, making him pull the F's nose up, but
he knew it would cause a collision if he let that
happen. He choked back the overwhelming sensation of
tumbling and spinning and focused on the attitude
indicator, forcing it to stay at wings level and 5
degrees nose down. He saw the altimeter
spinning downwards and applied a little power to level
off. "641 is clear, One-Five," he
radioed. Mundy took his hands off the control
stick momentarily, felt around his right instrument
panel, and flipped on all the exterior lights.
  "I've got a visual on you, 641," the
boom operator said. "Our next turn is coming
up. Do you have a visual on us?"
  "I've got a pretty good case of the
leans," Mundy said, still staring at the attitude
indicator but finally getting enough stability back
to glance at the heads-up display and other
indicators. "I'll stay straight and level at
the bottom of the block. Make your turn in the
anchor. 642, come join on me after you've made the
turn. I'll let Liberty know what's going
on." He pressed the mike button aft to the
SECURE U.h.f position: "Control, 641
flight is rejoining, two in the green, about eleven
apiece."
  "Copy, 641," the weapons controller aboard
the AWACS radar plane responded." 641
flight, vector heading one-six-zero, your bogey
is at one hundred bull's-eye low, speed
three-twenty, ID only, report tied on."
  "641 flight copies, check."
  , "Two," Humphrey replied.
  "641 turning right," Mundy radioed. His
case of the leans was just about cleared up, but his congestion
was as bad as ever and probably getting worse. The
shit was starting to pile up, he warned himself .
  .. "642, I'm at zero-two-zero for
seventy-five bull's-eye at angels
seventeen."
  "Tallyho." Humphrey had visual contact on
him, so Mundy pushed the throttle up to military
power, got on his vector heading, and started his
pursuit. Humphrey would catch up as he could, and
report when he was back in formation with his leader.
  With a closure rate of almost a thousand miles per
hour, the intercept did not take long. Mundy's
radar found a lone blip on the screen about seventy
miles from the New Jersey coast. Mundy used the
radar cursor control on the throttle quadrant
to move the cursor on the radar return, then hit
his DESIGNATE TARGET button on his control
stick and received an audio LOCK in his headphones
and a LOCK indication on his heads-up display. He
then hit the I.f.f INTERROGATE button on
his control stick, and a row of code letters appeared on
his target he had locked on to was transmitting
no air traffic control signals. With wackos like
Cazaux flying around, this was definitely a hostile
act, not to mention a really stupid thing to do--if I
had an I.f.f or radio malfunction at
night, Mundy thought, I wouldn't fly anywhere near
U.s. airspace these days.
  "Controlea641, radar contact, twelve o'clock,
thirty miles low, no paint."
  "That's your bogey," the weapons controller
confirmed, "641
  flight, check noses cold, ID only."
  Mundy checked the weapons status readouts on
his left multifunction display. He carried two
AIM-120 Ram radar-guided missiles and
four AIM hundred rounds of ammunition for the gun
and two external fuel tanks.
  Right now he had no weapons selected, none
armed. "641 confirms nose cold for the ID
pass, check."
  "Two," Humphrey responded. He was
supposed to do a complete weapons status check and
report, but, Mundy thought as he tried to clear his
head and ears, for now the less said on the radios, the
better.
  The last ten miles to the intercept turn passed
very quickly.
  The bogey was screaming now, almost four hundred
miles an hour, and he had descended to barely
three thousand feet above the ocean.
  This was not a smuggler or a terrorist--this guy
appeared on a military attack profile!
Mundy remembered that the Cuban drug smugglers
stopped by the Hammerheads a few years
earlier had used military aircraft to deliver
drugs--maybe Cazaux had turned to military
aircraft as well.
  That thought didn't cheer Mundy up one bit.
  Well, it was time to see what the story was. At
fifteen miles distance, high and slightly to the left
of the unknown aircraft's nose, Mundy started a
tight left turn and a rapid descent. He was
passing twelve thousand feet on his way to four
thousand .. .
  .. . when suddenly a red-hot jab of pain
spiked through his simlses like a knife driven into his
head, threatening to blow out his eyeballs. Mundy's
vision and hearing both disappeared in the incredible pain,
and his entire face seemed to creak and pop like a
slowly collapsing building. Mundy knew what it
was, and he was fully expecting it--what he had not
been expecting was the enormous amount of pain it
caused. With a head cold and sinus infection, the
rapid climb during takeoff forced mucus tightly
into the Eustachian tubes of Mundy's inner ear,
reducing the air pressure inside the sinuses and
inner ear and jamming the sinuses and inner ear closed.
  As the ambient air pressure increased during the
rapid descent, the outside air rushed in
and tried to fill the partial vacuum in the inner ear and
sinuses. The few extra pounds of air pressure
on the delicate sinus membrane and eardrums
caused intense pain. Mundy tried rolling his
head, tried a Valsalva maneuver, tried
swallowing, but the pain only continued. He dropped
his mask and tried to squirt more nasal spray
into his impacted sinuses.
  L Suddenly, the pressure in his left ear
went away, followed shortly by relief in his right
ear, and he could see his instruments again as most of the
pain washed away. But as he felt a warm
trickle of fluid .
  running down his neck, he knew the relief
wasn't because of the nasal spray--it was because he had just
ruptured both eardrums. He be had to turn the
radio volume up all the way to hear it.
  Mundy ran his finger up into his helmet's
earcups to scoop out sticky blobs of blood, but it
didn't help much.
  Somehow, through all that, he managed to stay on the
bogey, and now Mundy and Humphrey were closing in
within three miles of the unknown aircraft. It had
no exterior lights on--another sign of a
hostile. As he moved closer, Mundy
could start to make out its shape and size--
commercial, not military, at least no military
aircraft Mundy was familiar with. "Control,
641 flight, I have visual contact on a
commercial aircraft, two engines, possibly
three engines, aft mounted.
  No exterior lights, no interior lights
visible from the windows.
  It appears to be a Hawker or
Gulfstream-class bizjet.
  Activating ID light." Mundy could barely
hear himself talking through the radio, like listening to a
conversation going on in another room.
  The pain in his head was tolerable, but now his loss of
hearing and an occasional bout of the spins and the leans
made it difficult to concentrate.
  to Copy, 641.
  If the AWACS weapon controller responded,
Mundy didn't hear him, but he went ahead
anyway. By the time he had moved within one mile of the
bandit--he had stopped considering him just an "unknown"
and now thought of the aircraft as a "hostile"--they were
over the coast of New Jersey just north of Sea
Isle City, heading northwest. They had climbed
slightly, to about four thousand feet, but were still
traveling about six miles per minute. The bright
lights of the Philadelphia metropolitan area
were dazzling on the horizon, only fifty miles
away.
  "Control, 641 has a visual ID on a
Falcon- or Learjet-series twin engine
turbojet aircraft, tail number
November-114 Charlie Mike.
  Color appears silver or gray over dark
blue. Still no exterior lights.
  No visible external weapons, no open
doors. Moving forward.
  Acknowledge." Mundy heard a faint "Clear,
641," from the AWACS controller, so he
activated his ID searchlight on the left side
of his F-16 A.d.f fighter and started forward,
maneuvering the agile fighter so the searchlight
trained along the right side of the bandit's fuse lage
and across the row of windows.
  Mundy reached a point where the searchlight was shining
inside the right side of the bandit's cockpit, then
switched his VHF radio to 121.5, the international
GUARD frequency, and said, "Unidentified
bizjet-N114CM, this is the United States
Air Force fighter off your right side. You
are in violation of emergency federal air
regulations.
  You are hereby ordered to decrease speed, turn
left immediately to a heading of one-seven-zero direct
to the Sea Isle City VOR, and lower your landing
gear. Respond on 121.5 immediately. Over."
  "Welcome, Air Force F-16," came the
response. "This is Barry Kendall of the TV
news program "Whispers." I'm speaking to you on
the international aviation emergency frequency. Can you
hear me?
  How are you tonight?" The gulfstream's exterior
lights popped on, and its airspeed began
to decrease. "Can you tell us your name, please, and
where you're from?"
  "November-114CM, you are in deep shit."
Mundy had to restrain himself from coming completely
unglued at this point. He recognized the TV
show, of course, one of a series of trashy
"tabloid TV" shows that liked to bring cameras
into the most unlikely places to videotape people in
compromising positions. Why the hell they'd risk
their lives to pull this stunt, Mundy couldn't
figure. "I mean, you are in serious violation.
If you proceed any farther you may be
fired upon without warning. Turn left immediately towards
Sea Isle City VOR and prepare for an
approach and landing at Atlantic City
International.
  Over."
  "Air Force pilot, this is Barry, we're
live right now on national TV, and about twenty
million viewers are watching this intercept.
  I must say, it took you boys longer than I
expected to find us.
  Did you have us on radar the whole time, watching us,
or did it take some time to track us down?"
Mundy was going to repeat his warning, but the bastard
continued, "Now that you have us identified, my cockpit
crew is going to reactivate our flight plan and
we'll proceed up the coast to our destination at
Newark Airport. We're going to switch off the
low-light camera and take some footage with the
regular camera.
  Thanks for your cooperation, guys." At that, a
blinding beam of light stabbed out from the bizjet's
cockpit, aimed right at Mundy.
  The beam momentarily blinded him--not painfully, but
irritating enough--but when Mundy swung his head
down and away to shield his eyes, he got
an instantaneous case of the leans. The F-16
seemed to do a tailflip right over onto its back.
In a reflex action, Mundy screamed on the
radio and pulled the control stick back hard before
realizing that it was the leans, not an uncommanded flight
control pitch-down.
  He climbed nearly a thousand feet before he
finally regained control and started believing the
attitude indicator again .. .
  But at the instant Mundy screamed on the
radio, Tom Humphrey had reacted
reflexively as well. He hit the DOGFIGHT
button on his throttle, which changed the F's
weapons and fire control computer mode instantly from
VID (visual identification) mode to "Air
to-Air" mode, arming his AIM-9 Sidewinder
heat-seeking missiles and his 20-millimeter
cannon, then flipped the MASTER
ARM/SIMULATE switch on his stores control
panel to MASTER ARM. He immediately got an
RDY meaning that the four missiles were armed. He
then hit the large UNCAGE button on his
throttle, which unlocked the seeker heads of his
missiles. Seconds later Humphrey got a
blinking diamond in the middle right side of
his heads-up display, indicating that the first-up
Sidewinder had locked on to the bizjet and was in the
launch zone.
  He pressed the weapon-release button on his
control stick. The whole procedure took about
three seconds.
  An AIM-9Like missile slid off the
number-two-weapon-station rail in a brief burst
of light and hit the bizjet's left engine a
split second later.
  Mundy didn't--couldn't--see any of this. He
saw a brief flash of light out of the corner of an
eye, then heard someone shouting "Mayday!
  Mayday! Mayday!" on the radios. He heard
a brace of loud static, then a brief "Oh,
shit .. ." then nothing.
  "641 flight, Liberty Control."
  "641, go."
  "641, was that your mayday? Say status."
  "641 is in the green," Mundy said. "I got
blinded by a spotlight from the Lear, and I had
to split from the intercept. I heard the mayday
call. 641 has lost visual contact with the
target. 641 flight, check.
  was No response.
"November-Juliet-642, check in on
Liberty Control button nine." Still no
response. Mundy searched out his cockpit
canopy--pretty useless gesture at night--then
said urgently on the radio, "Tom, damn it, are
you up?"
  "Two's up," Humphrey finally responded.
"Shit, I thought you were under attack, lead."
  Mundy heard the sheer panic in his wingman's
voice, and his throat turned as dry as sand. "Say
again, 642?"
  "I thought he was shooting at you," Humphrey
said. Mundy could hear sobs coming from his wingman--
Jesus, he was crying ..
  .
  "I thought he was shooting at you, Greg, I thought
you were hit .
  .."
  Mundy finally realized what his wingman had done.
"Tom, this is Greg, do you have a visual on me?
Do you see my lights? What's your position?"
There was no response. "Tom, say your
position."
  He thought he'd try a more rigid, formal
approach: "641 flight, check!"
  "Two's .. . up .. . oh God oh God
.. . I shot the fucking plane down .. ."
Humphrey responded.
  "Tom, you were doing your job. Rejoin now, get
back on my wing," Mundy shouted. "Where are you?
Say your position? Do you have me in sight?
  Control, give me a vector to 642. Tom,
damn it, answer." A sudden bright tongue of fire
caught Mundy's attention. He saw an
F-16
  in full afterburner streak across the sky from his nine
o'clock position, heading northward, then turn suddenly
in front of him and head eastbound, back out over the
Atlantic. "Tom, I see your burner, I'll
be tied on radar in a second, stand by .. . you can
cut your burner now, Tom." The afterburner plume
remained. At nearly one hundred thousand pounds of
fuel burned per hour at zone 5 afterburner, he
would exhaust his fuel in less than three minutes.
  Mundy turned eastward to follow his wingman."
642, I've got you tied on radar, cut your
burner and I'll join on your right side .. .
  cut your burner, I said!" Mundy had to kick
in afterburner himself to keep Humphrey on radar.
"Tom .. . Cut your burner! I've
got you in a descent, climb and maintain eight
thousand, I'll be at your five o'clock position."
  Ninety seconds later,
November-Juliet-642 plunged into the
Atlantic twelve miles east of Longport,
New Jersey, still in full afterburner, hitting the
ocean at well over the speed of sound.
  Vacationers on the Boardwalk at Atlantic
City reported a streak of light across the sky out
over the ocean and wondered if it was a shooting star.
  In case it was, some made a wish.
  New Executive Office Building,
Washington, D.c. Less Than an Hour
Later Lieutenant Colonel Also Vincenti
trotted into Hardcastle's makeshift office in the
New Executive Office Building, across the
street from the White House. He had finally been
convinced to keep his flight suit in the closet and
put on a class A uniform while working in the
general proximity of the White House, but it was
obvious he was uncomfortable with it; it was also obvious
that he had shaved in the car on the way over, because he
missed a few spots. Deborah Harley, on the
other hand, looked as scrubbed and as ready to go as she
always did, even though she arrived several
minutes before Vincenti.
  "What's happened, Admiral?" Vincenti
asked. "The operator said something about an accident."
  Hardcastle handed him an electric razor and a
desk mirror-obviously Hardcastle was an
expert at shaving on the run.
  "Clean up while I run it down for you," he
told Vincenti. "About an hour ago, the
Atlantic City fighter group intercepted a
bizjet running with its lights and transponder off,
trying to race in off the Atlantic toward
Philadelphia. Turns out it was a camera crew
from that trash TV show "Whispers."
  his
  "Don't tell me," Vincenti said. "A
midair?"
  "Worse--a Sidewinder up the tailpipe, after
the intercept and the ID," Hardcastle said.
Vincenti swore under his breath--it was an
interceptor pilot's nightmare in the best of
conditions, but under the present emergency it was only a
matter of time before it actually happened. "Worse
yet--the shooter decides he's done a really bad
thing and crashes his F-16 into the ocean."
  "Oh, God, no," Vincenti
exclaimed. "The President's going to have a
shit-fit."
  "We'll find out," Hardcastle said as his office
phone rang.
  "Lifter's calling in the staff for a meeting in
two hours; the President will be awakened at four
A.m and the first meeting in the Oval Office will
probably be at five. We got a long day
ahead of us."
  Hardcastle's secretary was out--it was after
midnight--so Hardcastle picked the phone up
himself. "Hardcastle .. ."
  "Is this Admiral Ian Hardcastle, the one
hunting down Henri Cazaux?"
  Hardcastle pointed to an extension line in the
secretary's alcove; Harley immediately ran for it,
checked to see if it had a dead switch--it did--and
picked it up. The dead switch would kill the
mouthpiece unless the button was pushed. She also
started recording the conversation and starting a caller
ID trace with the push of one button on the
secretary's phone console. When she was on,
Hardcastle asked, "Who is this?"
  "No names," the caller said. "Just listen. Henri
Cazaux's base of operations is a
three-story mansion on Cottage Road,
Bedminster, New Jersey. It's protected
by heavily armed gunmen. He was there a few hours
ago; I don't know if he's there now. Cazaux
is planning something big." The line went dead.
  "Damn it! He hung up," Hardcastle said.
To Vincenti he said, "Someone calling telling us
Cazaux's whereabouts."
  "Another one? This makes .. . what, the
one-thousandth .. .
  ?"
  "This sounded more genuine to me."
  "Just let the FBI have it, Ian, and let's get
back to--" Hardcastle ignored him.
"Deborah .. . ?"
  "Got the phone number from caller ID,"
Harley said. All phone calls going to any
federal government office are automatically
traced, using caller ID, which instantly reports
the caller's phone number, and by instantaneous
computer phone-record checks.
  "Manhattan exchange. I can run the address
through the FBI .. .
  but let me take this one, okay?" Harley
smiled. "It might tie into some stuff
I've heard. The Marshals Service interviewed
a Wall Street investor at an aircraft
reclamation firm in Mojave who was acting as a
third-party broker buying several large aircraft
for an aerial firefighting firm in Montana.
He mentioned a part of their investigation on this sent them
to a secretarial service in north-central New
Jersey.
  Their investigation dead-ended there--"
  "But maybe it's just come alive again,"
Hardcastle said.
  "Wonder why we never heard anything about this
investigation?"
  "Because the Marshals said they turned everything over
to the FBI," Harley said. "Briefed Director
Wilkes personally." Hardcastle nodded.
  "Ian, if we dump this on Wilkes, it'll
get pushed into the wacko pile.
  Let me have it. I'll give it to the Marshals
Service.
  They deserve a try at Cazaux for what
happened to them in California."
  Hardcastle looked decidedly uncomfortable.
He said, "I'm not sure, Deborah. I'm not
averse to letting the Marshals redeem their
reputation after the Chico raid, but I'm not winning
any points butting heads with Lam Wilkes and the
President."
  "You handed the wacko call to me and told me
to notify the authorities," Harley suggested.
"You meant the FBI; I took it to the Marshals
Service. I can handle the heat from the justice
Department, believe me."
  "I believe you," Hardcastle said. "Okay, you
got it. Notify the proper authorities about this
call immediately, Miss Harley."
  "Yes, sir," she responded with a smile.
  "As long as I'm sticking my neck out,
Deborah, I might as well stick it out all the
way," Hardcastle said. He made two phone
calls from his desk, quickly typed out a letter on
Office of the National Security Advisor
letterhead, and handed it to Harley. She read it quickly,
her smile becoming brighter and wider by the moment.
  "You've received blanket authorization from me
to requisition some hardware the 'authorities" will
need for their operation. Take the Executive
shuttle to the Pentagon heliport--an NSC
helicopter will take you. The crews at Patuxent
River Naval Weapons Center are
waiting."
  "Yes, sir, was Harley said. "I'm on my
way. Thanks, Ian."
  New York city That Same Time "Who the
hell are you calling this time of night?"
  Ted Fell nearly fell over backwards in his
seat in surprise.
  Harold Lake never prowled the hallways and
never stopped in Fell's tiny office--until tonight.
Fell could feel his heart hammering away in his
chest, and he had to fight to control his tone of voice:
"Jesus, Harold, what are you skulking around for?"
  "I needed the option contract summary on the
Isakawa house holdings--the Japanese markets
open in thirty minutes. Who were you on the phone
with?"
  "Kim," Fell said. Lake briefly
recalled that Fell had a somewhat steady girlfriend
whom he brought on occasion to a cocktail party-that
must be her. "Told her I wouldn't be home tonight."
  "Thought you called her after we got back from
Jersey." Fell shrugged.
  "Doesn't hurt to make her feel included,
I guess." It was ambiguous enough, and Fell
hoped that would disinterest Lake enough to drop this
line of questioning. Harold Lake never showed an ounce
of interest in anyone else's personal life--it was
strange he was asking questions about it now. "I put the
summary in your E-mail folder.
  We're looking good, as long as Isakawa
doesn't think we're on the ropes because we're
selling our portfolio.
  If he does, we'll be down around the
fifteen-percent range again."
  Fell remembered when making 15 percent a day
was considered incredibly good. Now it was one-half
to one-third of what they were making, and would be considered
a very bad day.
  "We're liquidating, but it doesn't mean we
gotta take any bullshit from the Japanese or
from that asshole Quek Pah Liao in
Singapore," Lake said. He studied Fell for a
moment, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.
  "That crazy fucker Ysidro really rattled you,
didn't he?"
  "I don't see how you could just sit there and watch
him play with that .
  .. that human heart," Fell said, his eyes
growing distant.
  "It was horrible, disgusting."
  "You gotta detach yourself from their world, Ted,"
Lake said, but even as he said that, his mind's eye was
obviously replaying that gruesome sight. "Forget
about it."
  That was the understatement of the year, Fell thought,
remembering his bizarre encounter with the woman in
Cazaux's place. She obviously got her
kicks out of setting men up to die. "How did you
ever get involved with those animals, Harold?"
  Lake shrugged, then leaned against the door as if the
very thought had taken all his strength away. "The
money, at first," he replied.
  "Cazaux had a guy on his payroll whose job
it was to launder money, except he was a jerk. He
was openly skimming at least ten percent from
Cazaux's funds, I mean, he didn't even
try to account for the loss.
  Cazaux eventually caught him--you saw a
heart, Ted, but my first meeting with Henri
Cazaux, he was carrying this banker's severed fucking
head in a bag. I got the old "ploma o
plato" offer then--lead or silver, a bullet in
the head or wealth beyond reason, if I joined him.
It's a hard offer to refuse.
  "Hey, I know who I work for. A
bigger assassin than the Jackal, bigger terrorist
than Abu Nidal, a bigger arms dealer than
Adnan Khasho)i.
  It's like being the chief designer for Lee
Iacocca or Ralph Lauren.
  You're working for the best--"
  "Harold, think about what you're saying," Fell
interrupted.
  "You're working for a killer, a murderer, a
terrorist. He kills without thinking, without caring.
He kills for money."
  "So what? We all do something for money, one way
or another.
  If I think about it, I'll go fucking nuts."
Fell noticed that Lake had all but lost his
sophisticated accent and speech pattern, and had
digressed almost all the way back to his New
Jersey accent. It was a fitting signal of how he
had slid into the depths of the criminal world.
  "Check on the plane and the security setup again,
Ted."
  "It's too early, Harold."
  "I want them ready in twenty-four hours,"
Lake said. "They're ready when I say they're
ready. no more calling your bimbos.
  We'll be out of the damned country and out of her and
everyone else's life in just a few days. Ted ..
. get used to the idea." He stepped away from
Fell's door and back down the hallway, but
glanced back at his attorney. Fell was staring
blankly at the telephone again, as if trying
to check on something--or someone--far away.
  ake couldn't stand it any longer. He charged back
into Fell's office, reached Fell's desk before the
attorney's eyes even registered that he was back
in the room, and hit the REDIAL button on
Fell's phone. On the small LCD screen at
the top of the phone, a number with a 202 area code
popped up. "All right, Ted, what in hell's
going on?
  That's Washington, D.c. Your girlfriend lives
here in Manhattan. We don't have any brokers
in D.c. Whose fucking number is that?"
  "It's the forwarding number for the new deputy of the
security team we hired, Ha--" "Don't
fucking lie to me! was Lake shouted. "What in
hell did you do?
  Who did you call, Ted?" Fell appeared as
if he were going to try his story one more time, but Lake
grabbed his shirt collar in both hands and
shouted, "Answer me!"
  "Hardcastle," Fell said in a weak voice.
"National Security Council .
  .. the guy on TV, in charge of the air defense
stuff .
  .."
  "Oh, shit, tell me you're fucking kidding ..
. oh, shit, oh shit," Lake said. He
unplugged the PBX cable from the phone, dumping the
phone log memory from the unit, then left it
unplugged. "You asshole--you didn't use the
secure exchange. Cazaux is bound to find out."
  "I am out of this, Harold," Fell said. "I
am out of this entire operation. I'm getting the hell
away from butchers like Cazaux and psychos like
Ysidro, and if you had any brains you'd get out
too."
  "But what did you say? What did you do?"
  "I was going to leave a message on the NSC'S
voice mail," Fell said.
  "Hardcastle himself answered it. I told him the
location of Cazaux's mansion in Bedminster, and I
told him about the hostage he's got in there."
  "What hostage? What in hell are you talking
about?"
  "He's holding a woman in a third-floor
apartment, Harold.
  He's beating the hell out of her."
  "Dark hair, exotic-looking, kind of
spacey?" Fell's expression told Lake that
he had guessed correctly. "That's Cazaux's
astrologer, you idiot. Varga, or Vega--I
don't know the bitch's fucking name.
  She's no hostage, Ted--she likes getting
beat up. She gets off on it.
  You called the authorities to try to rescue her?
She's the one who's probably been telling
Cazaux to do all this in the first place!
  She's as weird as he is. They're like both out
of a fuckin' horror movie."
  "Oh, God .. ." It made sense now--he
thought he was helping her, while all along the woman
was going to get her kicks watching Cazaux slice
him up into little pieces. Shit, Fell thought, what
in the hell am I doing here? "Well, that doesn't
matter," Fell said, thinking hard and fast. "I'm
not doing this for her-I'm doing it for me. I'm tired
of standing by and watching Cazaux rip this country apart."
  "So you ratted him out," Lake said. "Jesus,
Fell, our lives aren't worth spit
anymore."
  "We've got an escape plan worked out,
Harold. Let's do it.
  Let's get the hell out of here."
  "I've got forty million dollars in options
contracts being executed in the next six to ten
hours, Ted. I can't leave. I'll have to sign a
proxy, pay someone to execute the contracts, sign
for the cash.
  I can't risk this operation with any of that."
  "Harold, I'm out of here," Fell said. He
told him about the woman, about how she had tried
to get him to pull a gun on Henri Cazaux and
then watch Cazaux kill him. "I told the
authorities about Cazaux and how they can find him.
If anyone escapes the raid, they'll try
to hunt us down. I want to be safely hidden long
before that.
  I'll help you get out, too, but if you want
to stay I can't help you."
  Lake thought about it, but only for a moment--he
knew that Fell was right. Cazaux and his cronies were
completely out of control, and the slightest screw-up
would mean instant, deadly retaliation. Even i
knew it was time to get out. "All right,
Ted, you're right," Lake decided.
  "Notify the flight crew and the security
detail--we leave immediately.
  I'll execute the contracts and the cancel orders
and have the funds sent by the bank to Townsend at the
mansion--he'll know what to do with the cashier's check.
Jesus, I hope the FBI nails Cazaux,
because he will hunt us down for sure."
  Bedminster, New Jersey Three Hours Later
The first guard heard it while it was still a long way
off, a heavy, slow rhythmic beating against the sky.
He raised his left hand to his ear until the cuff
of his left sleeve was even with his lips and said,
"Station three, chopper, south, big one."
  "Copy," the security shift officer
responded. Everyone knew that Tomas Ysidro,
the chief of security, would be listening in to the guard's
channel, so responses were quick.
  The first guard withdrew a Russian-made
monocular night vision scope from a case at his
side and scanned the sky. His line-of sight
visibility was extremely limited, but his job
wasn't to scan the sky, but the treeline, about
seventy yards away, and the long gravel driveway
leading to the main dirt road. The rain had
stopped, but the clouds were thick, scuttling across the
sky on strong low-level winds as the summer night
storm passed. He could see the glowing yellow eyes
of a small animal, a raccoon or possum,
scurrying from tree to tree, doing some nocturnal
hunting. The night-vision scope always revealed all
sorts of animals--deer, foxes, rabbits by the
barnful .. .
  .. . and men. The guard chuckled as he watched
one of the other guards emerge from the trees, about a
hundred and fifty yards away, zipping up his fly
after taking a piss in the trees. He saw a puff
of smoke trickle from his mouth--the asshole was
smoking on duty with the brass in the house. He was
using a light shield around his cigarette so
Ysidro or Cazaux wouldn't see his glowing cig,
but the night-vision equipment clearly showed the
smoke. If Ysidro saw that, he'd kick his
ass. It was a hell of a chance to take just for a lousy
cigarette.
  He lowered his night-vision binoculars and listened
for the helicopter--nothing. "Station three, clear,"
he reported.
  "Copy."
  The guard relaxed a bit, letting the
scope dangle on its neck strap and crossing the
Colt all-15 assault rifle, the
semiautomatic version of the standard Army M-16,
in his arms. Bedminster had very little air traffic at
night, but the estate was just a few miles from
Interstate 78 and State Route 206, so they
got visitors once in a while.
  Interstate 78 was the main drag between Newark and
Allentown, and choppers and light planes often
followed the interstate at night when A sudden sound
made the guard alert. He put the all-15 in his
hands and dropped to one knee, scanning the treeline
for any hint of motion. He knew from Army training
that at night the edges of the eye picked up motion
better, so he carefully scanned the treeline.
He was fully exposed where he was standing--too far
away from the house, but close enough to be illuminated
by the light from a few windows and too far from the trees
to take cover. He reached for the scope .. .
  "What the hell are you doing out in the open like this,
asshole?"
  The guard was so startled he nearly fell over
into the wet grass.
  Tomas Ysidro had succeeded in stepping out of the
front door of the house right up beside him, and
he didn't hear a thing. The guard shot to his
feet, swinging the all's muzzle around at
Ysidro, who caught the barrel of the rifle and
yanked it out of his hands.
  "Jesus, Vaccarro, what's with you?" Ysidro
asked, giving the rifle back.
  "Thought I heard a noise, sir."
  "Yeah, it was me, burping and farting all the way
from the house," Ysidro said. Cazaux's
third-in-command was carrying a sidearm holstered in
a quick-draw shoulder rig, but his hands were full with a
burger and a mug of coffee. "Now get the hell out
of the light."
  "Yes, sir."
  "What about that chopper?"
  "Heard it for about thirty seconds, well to the
south," the guard said.
  "Didn't hear it approach. Big one."
  "Good call--it helps to keep the whole detail
on their toes," Ysidro said. "I'll send one
of the new guys out to spell you in about--" This time they
both heard it--a loud snap! of a twig, on the
treeline.
  Ysidro pushed the guard hard to the right to get him
out of the light, the coffee and burger went
flying, and a SIG Sauer P226
  9-millimeter automatic was in his hands in the
blink of an eye.
  "Call it in, damn it!" Ysidro said in a
loud whisper.
  "Station three, intruder east on the treeline,"
the guard radioed.
  He took cover behind a tall bush and retrieved
the night vision scope, q He saw a lone
figure, running toward the house beside the gravel
driveway.
  The guard raised his all-15, sighted with the
scope--then recognized the runner. "Mick,
damn it, what the hell are you doing?"
  the guard whispered into his radio. The running
man dropped to the ground, waving his rifle at the
treeline. "Mick, answer up!"
  "What?" the second guard radioed back--the
first guard could see him talk into his left sleeve
while holding his earpiece in his left ear.
  "Was that you talking, Tommy, you asshole?"
  "Was that you on the treeline?" the first guard
radioed back.
  He saw the guard named Mick lower his head in
nervous exasperation.
  He lifted his sleeve mike to his lips.
"Station three, secure.
  Stand by and I'll clear the treeline." He saw
the second guard start to get to his feet,
angrily brushing himself off and shouldering his rifle on
its strap. "Mick, stay put until I clear
the--" Tommy saw the second guard named Mick
suddenly turn toward the treeline, and seconds
later he heard another sound--but this one wasn't a
twig.
  An unknown voice shouted, "Freeze! Federal
agents!"
  Mick fumbled with his rifle, but he didn't get
it up to his waist to try a shot from the hip before he
heard three quick pop-pop-pop's from a suppressed
automatic three-burst submachine gun, and
Mick went down.
  "Intruders, treeline east--federal agents!"
Tommy radioed. He scanned the treeline and
saw only one figure, dressed completely in
black, with a military-style helmet, ballistic
face mask under a pair of night-vision goggles,
black fatigues, and black body armor with the words
udds. MARSHAL on the front under a combat harness.
"I only see one, treeline east! I
--" The greenish image of the marshal suddenly
disappeared in a puff of fire, and the guard dropped
the night-vision scope and rubbed the pain from his eyes.
The security supervisor inside the mansion had
activated the motion-sensing land mines that ringed the
compound, and the first marshal was history.
  "Lost contact with Davis on the ground team at
target thirteen," the airborne assault leader
reported. "I heard a challenge, then shots, then
nothing."
  "I'd call that an "officer needs
assistance," was Deputy Chief Marshal
William Landers said. "Should've known it would be
target thirteen--my unlucky number." Dressed
in full body armor and protective headgear,
Landers was aboard one of the three CV-22 PAVE
HAMMER tilt-rotor aircraft just outside
Cazaux's Bedminster home.
  Landers was the number-two man in the U.s.
Marshals Service, a twenty-one-year veteran,
an experienced field agent, and former commander of the
Marshals' Special Operations Group, also known
as SOG.
  "Let's go in using assault plan Alpha."
The PAVE HAMMER, formerly one of the
Hammerheads' antismuggling aircraft and still
sporting its distinctive Department of Border
Security high-visibility orange markings,
lifted off from the interstate rest-stop parking lot and
leaped into the sky, rotating its wingtip engine
nacelles so the two large rotors were pointing at
a 45-degree angle for more forward speed.
  From other staging areas nearby, two more CV-22
tilt-rotor aircraft lifted off at the same
time and raced for the estate.
  There were several large homes in the Bedminster area
described by the unknown informant during his brief
phone call, so the Marshals Service had immediate
City, Philadelphia, and Newark offices into the
area to start surveillance on each suspected
residence. Unfortunately, it had taken the
apparent death of a marshal to find the right one.
  Now, the three CV-22 aircraft, each
carrying ten fully armed SOG agents, were
encircling Henri Cazaux's mansion in the hopes
of capturing the world's most wanted criminal.
  Landers' CV-22 took only two minutes
to approach the estate.
  Flying low and slow, the hybrid
airplane-helicopter slowed by swiveling
the rotors to full helicopter position. When it was
about five hundred yards from the mansion, it
activated its bank of four 3,000-candlepower
Nightsun searchlights and turned them onto the
front door of the mansion. Landers, standing between the
pilot's and copilot's seats, watched their
approach through the CV-2?-s telescopic TV
camera. At two hundred yards, Landers clicked
on the public address speaker: "Attention. This
is the U.s. Marshals Service.
  We have a federal search warrant and demand entry.
Come out of the house immediately with your hands up."
  "U.s. Marshals, my ass," Tomas
Ysidro said to Henri Cazaux.
  "Let's take care of those motherfuckers ourselves,
Henri."
  The two terrorists finished donning their own
assault uniforms--skin-tight protective
black body suit, Reactor combat gloves,
balaclava hood, black Hitec trail
sneakers, and a combat ALICE harness laden with
pistols, knives, grenades, and other tools and
devices.
  "Can't risk it, especially not with assault
aircraft out there," Cazaux said.
  "We play it right, one of those choppers could be
ours."
  "I said, we cannot risk it," Cazaux snapped.
"The time to play action hero will come, Tomas, and I
want you with me when it comes.
  But for now, we need to survive to execute the
rest of our plan.
  Execute the escape plan and we will meet in the
Catskill ranch in six hours. We're going after
a prize much greater than a few tilt-rotor
aircraft," Cazaux said, extending a hand.
Ysidro took it, then they embraced. "Bonne
chance, mon ami."
  "Fuck you too, my friend," Ysidro said in
return. He pulled up his balaclava, then
turned to his security supervisor.
"Deactivate the land mines for ten seconds after you
see the DOOR OPEN light, then turn "em
back on." His eyes flared for an instant,
punctuating his last order: "And I want to hear
plenty of fireworks out here or I'll come back and
stuff your nuts down your throat. Hear me?"
  "I heard an explosion, then lost contact with
Davis," one of the other ground agents reported.
"I'm thinking the place is mined."
  "Shit," Landers said. "That entire front lawn
might be mined-that takes care of our landing zone."
He turned to another person watching the scene below
next to him. "Thoughts, Agent Harley?"
  U.s. Secret Service Agent Deborah
Harley, wearing the same body armor and assault
gear as the U.s. Marshals--except her body
armor said TREASURY AGENT on the front--
studied the TV image carefully. "I don't
see those guards on the rooftop anymore--we're
going to have to assume the roof and that balcony over the
front entrance are booby-trapped too. Let's
--"
  "Unit One, this is Three, four
motorcycles leaving the house at high speed," one
of the other CV-22 pilots radioed. "One each
cardinal direction." Harley and Landers picked up
one of the motorcycles barrelin straight for the
woods.
  "Try to stop them without killing them!" Harley
shouted.
  "All units, clear to engage riders, try
to interdict only, do not shoot to kill." Landers
knew it was a useless command--anytime a weapon was
used during a mission like this, death was always a
possibility, especially with the weapons the
CV-22'S had. Trying to wound someone with a weapon
designed to destroy an armored vehicle or a
building was sometimes just not possible.
  The pilot of Landers" CV-22 pulled the
trigger on his control stick to the first detent, which
activated the gun camera and slaved both the
tilt-rotor aircraft's Hughes Chain Gun
and the thermal sight in the CV-2?-s nose to the
pilot's line-of-sight--the forwardlooking infrared
sight followed the pilot's head movements, and the
Chain Gun slaved itself to the aiming crosshairs
superimposed on a clear glass reticle in
front of the pilot's right eye. When the
crosshairs settled on a spot just a few feet
in front of the motorcycle's tires, the pilot
pulled the trigger to the second detent. A
fifty-round burst of cannon fire that sounded like a
chain-saw blade cutting through the aircraft's
aluminum skin rattled through the PAVE HAMMER
aircraft.
  The motorcycle rider obviously saw the Chain
Gun's muzzle flash, because he veered hard left
as soon as the cannon fired. The motorcycle
skidded on the slippery grass, and the rider
threw himself clear as he went down. The
motorcycle skidded straight ahead and was instantly
turned into scrap metal by cannon fire.
  The CV-22 pilot swooped lower. The rider
rolled along the ground for several feet before coming
to rest in a half-sitting, halfprone position,
shaking cobwebs out of his head. He was wearing a dark
skin-tight suit with a mask--Harley or Landers
couldn't recognize him.
  "Turn facedown and spread your arms and legs,"
Landers shouted over the PA speaker when they hit the
rider with the spotlight. To the pilots, Landers said,
"Hover right over him, guys.
  We'll fastrope right over him and haul him up
with the rescue winch.
  We'd just better hope he's not laying right on
top of a mine or we'll--"
  "He's moving .. . damn it!" the pilot
swore. He was distracted enough to lose sight of him as
the rider got up and ran underneath the PAVE
HAMMER. "Aft gunners, keep an eye out
for--" There was a loud bang! and the CV-22 heeled
sharply over to the left. The pilot corrected for the
shove, gained a little altitude, and experimentally
swung the tilt-rotor aircraft's
tail around so they were facing the forest. No caution
lights illuminated, and the aircraft responded
normally. "What happened?" he called on
interphone.
  "Someone sing out."
  "Land mine," one of the aft gunners called out.
"The suspect had just reached the edge of the trees when
he tripped it. He exploded like a rotten
tomato."
  "Well, we know the land mines have been activated
again," Landers said.
  "Pretty sophisticated--a fucking
remote-controlled perimeter defense system.
Any doubt we got the right house?"
  The guard named Tommy watched the whole thing--
watched the motorcycle rider zoom away from the
house toward the forest, watched the huge helicopter
open up on him, watched the rider do a
triple-flip through the air, then watched as he was
blown into a him dred pieces by one of the land mines.
The big boxy-looking twin rotor helicopter with
airplane wings was now hovering at the edge of the
clearing, pointing not quite at the front door but a little
off to the right, as if deciding what to do. Tommy had
traded his semiautomatic all-15 for a
full-automatic M-16 with a fifty-round
magazine and an M206
  40-millimeter grenade launcher, and had taken
his position at one of the bulletproof
polycarbonate front windows inside the mansion.
  Suddenly the big chopper's blinding searchlights
swung around and hit the house full force. Tommy
lowered his night-vision goggles--they were useless with so
much light. A voice came over the chopper's
PA.
  "Come out of the house with your hands in the air!
  This is your last warning!"
  "Two more of those things, surrounding the house,"
someone radioed.
  "Did the boss make it?"
  "I don't think so."
  "What do we do?" Tommy shouted back over his
shoulder.
  "They got a damned big gun on that thing!"
  "Sit tight," the security supervisor said.
"Everyone hold your fire.
  They won't use the heavy stuff unless we--"
  "What are you doing?"
  a female voice behind Tommy shouted.
  Tommy whirled around, pointing the
M-16. It was "the witch," as everyone called
her-Cazaux's squeeze, the crazy woman who
lived upstairs. She was wearing a silky red
robe. Her long dark hair like a lion's mane was
around her shoulders. The robe was not tied, and her
breasts and crotch were exposed. "Why aren't you
attacking?"
  "Shut up and get out of here," Tommy said,
pausing to get a good look at the witch's body.
Pretty nice rack, he thought, but she had to be as
crazy as they come to be walking around half-naked like
that in the middle of a firelight. "Go downstairs in
the wine cellar until this is over."
  Jo Ann Vega saw the gunmen's eyes roving
over her body before turning back toward the window.
Another typical male, she thought angrily.
  "Listen, you little son of a bitch, get o"...It there
and kill them.
  Avenge Henri."
  "Those are U.s. Marshals out there, and they got
heavy stuff.
  We'll wait them out until we know the boss is
safe."
  "Henri is already dead," the witch said. "I saw
him get hit out there." Tommy swallowed,
finding it hard to believe that Henri Cazaux was
dead, but he stayed at his position. "You've got
to avenge him," the witch shrieked. "Get out there and
kill those federals, now!"
  "I said, shut up, take your big tits
downstairs and take cover, lady."
  That did it--the male pig deserved it now. Jo
Ann Vega raised her Lorcin .380
automatic and fired three shots into the back of the
man's head from two feet away. There were a few
other shots as other gunners nervously fired a few
rounds. Vega reached down, pulled the M-16 out
of the dead man's arms, walked quickly to the front
door, and swung it open.
  "I'll take care of them for you, Henri, my
love," Vega said aloud.
  "God how I loathe weak men." She stepped
outside, her robe flying open in the wind. As she
emerged out from under the breezeway in front of the
house, she leveled the M-16 at the searchlights
on the big aircraft on the other side of the
expansive lawn and pulled the trigger. Her first
shot came the closest, missing the searchlights
by only a few feet, but the other shots went high and
to the right.
  She had fired almost the entire magazine, most of
it almost straight up in the air, and was trying
to figure out how to launch one of the
inch-and-a-half-diameter grenades from the launcher
slung under the rifle when the marshals' aircraft's
cannon opened fire.
  Three 12.7-millimeter shells hit, one in
the head and two in the torso, and jo Ann Vega was
split apart as easily as a hammer hitting a
banana.
  The cannon then sprayed the rest of the front of the
house, hitting each and every window with a gunner in it.
Then, a long cylindrical pod on the left side
of the PAVE HAMMER aircraft popped out of the
left sponson, and three rockets ripple-fired
into the front of the house, blowing out the front door and
creating two more mansized flaming holes.
  Skidding to the left to shield the right side of the
aircraft from the gunners in the front of the house, the
CV-22 flew toward it. A few shots of
automatic gunfire from the upper floors were
immediately answered by Chain Gun fire. The Chain
Gun then fired a path into the front lawn toward the
house, creating a terrific explosion as one of the
shells found a land mine close to the house.
Two more rockets blasted into the house near the
front door, the CV-22 stopped about twenty
yards from the front of the house with its nose high in the
air, hovered for a few seconds, then veered sharply
to the left and climbed over the house.
  Leading six U.s. Marshals, Deborah
Harley and William Landers jumped off the back
cargo ramp of the PAVE HAMMER. Following the
chewed-up pa from land mines. Firing into the windows,
most of which were ablaze, Harley and the seven Marshals
burst into the house.
  The ground floor was decimated. The walls were
blackened by smoke and fire, furniture was upended
and smashed, and smoking, crumpled bodies lay
everywhere. Harley, wearing a gas mask, shot one
armed guard running toward the stairs from the kitchen,
then ran upstairs.
  She tossed two tear gas grenades upstairs,
then, with more agents behind her, started clearing rooms.
She shot two more gunmen stupid enough to have guns in their
hand and turned over six more blinded and choking guards
to the Marshals.
  Clearing the entire mansion took only five
minutes of careful searching by twelve U.s.
Marshals, and the assault was over. A
New Jersey National Guard ordnance-disposal
team from nearby Picatinny Arsenal had to come out
to create a safe ingress path toward the mansion, but
within minutes the cleanup was under way.
  Hardcastle arrived about an hour after the raid was
over. He admired the large, lumbering PAVE
HAMMER hovering nearby.
  "Good to see you boys back on the job," he said
half-aloud to the ungainly hybrid aircraft--they
belonged to the U.s. Navy now, but he'd always think
of them as his. Hardcastle then turned to Deborah
Harley, checked her TREASURY AGENT body
armor, and said with a smile, "It's good to see you
too, Agent Harley. I should have known you were
Secret Service. It would explain why you seemed
to have the run of the White House, and how you seemed to have
access to a lot more intelligence information than the
average executive assistant."
  "Vice President Martindale hates
Secret Service around him, so I'm less of a
bodyguard and more assistant," Harley said. They were
given the all-clear by the Army ordnance-disposal
units to reenter the mansion, and Harley began
shrugging out of her body armor.
  "Have you ID'D the bodies yet?"
Hardcastle asked. "Was Cazaux here?
  Did you get him?"
  "Yes, yes, and I think so," Harley said.
She led Hardcastle to a line of corpses outside
the mansion, where U.s. Marshals were taking
fingerprints and photos of the bodies for
identification. "Hired gunners, ex- and retired
GI'S, a few known felons and mercenaries--
Cazaux recruited only the best." She kicked
aside a sheet high enough for Hardcastle to see a
mass of blood-caked hair and bloodied but
recognizable womanly features. "One woman,
might be a local-we're putting a rush on her
ID."
  Harley unzipped a black body bag with three
strips of tape on it.
  The badly bullet-mutilated body of a tall,
well-built man was inside-he had been hit
several times by cannon fire from one of the
CV-22'S.
  "This looks like him, Admiral. One of the Navy
flyboys got a little antsy and hit him with his Chain
Gun. Based on my best description, I think
that's Henri Cazaux."
  "Fingerprints? Dental records?"
  "We've already called the FBI," Harley said.
She noticed Hardcastle's disappointed expression
at having the FBI called in, and Harley added,
"The Marshals have printed and photoed the bodies, but
the FBI Pictures and Prints lab has the best
gear to do a positive ID, Ian, and they can do it
fast. The only other place to get Cazaux's
ID records is from the Belgian Army or from
Interpol, since Cazaux's never been a guest in
an American prison. I know you and Judge
Wilkes are having this thing with each other, but you want
an ironclad positive ID, and so you're
talking FBI. The Marshals are working on it, top
priority. But I might be able to give you something for the
Executive Committee or the White House."
  Harley checked a notebook retrieved from a
camouflage field briefcase, then knelt next
to the corpse: "Cazaux was supposed to have had
paratrooper tattoos on both his left and right hand
between the thumb and forefinger." She picked up the
grisly bullet shattered hands nearby Marshals
had to turn away at the sight of the mutilated
body, but Harley handled it as casually as if she were
giving a baby a bath.
  "Here's one tattoo on his left hand
.. . and here's a scar on his right hand from laser
surgery. It looked like he was having the tattoos
removed. They were apparently executing a
well-rehearsed escape plan--we've found
vehicles, disguises, even a little two-man
helicopter stashed nearby."
  "Damn," Colonel Marc Sheehan said in
admiration. "You got him.
  You actually got Henri Cazaux!"
  "I'm not celebrating until those fingerprints and
dental records match," Hardcastle said. "In
the meantime I've got some information on the guy who
called with information on Cazaux."
  "Compare notes with this gent," Harley suggested.
She stepped over to one of the Marshals taking notes
over the bodies. "Admiral Hardcastle, meet
Timothy Lassen, chief deputy U.s.
Marshal from Sacramento. He's been tracking the
money from an aircraft transaction a few days
ago. I radioed him about the raid. Tim, the
Admiral's got a name for you."
  The Marshal checked a notebook, and before
Hardcastle had a chance to speak, said, "Ted
Fell. Works for a Wall Street greaser named
Harold Lake."
  "Jesus," Hardcastle exclaimed. As fast as
things were happening, Hardcastle thought, the Marshals and
people like Deborah Harley were mov Lassen?"
  "Good al'-fashioned pure dumb luck,"
Lassen admitted. "Lake brokered several large
aircraft deals for buyers all over the country.
  At first blush they all checked out--aerial
fire-fighters, corporate planes, parts, that
kind of thing. But one buyer didn't know it was Lake
who was brokering the deal, and he told me some
stories about Lake--about how he was in debt up
to his chin, about how he was sure to get caught in some
money-laundering scheme someday. I checked further.
  Turns out Lake's financial fortunes changed
right after Cazaux's attack on Memphis."
  "Changed? I thought you said he was already in debt."
  "I did," Lassen explained. "He was
bankrupt, worse than bankrupt.
  But two days before the attack on Universal
Express, Lake writes this complicated and
outrageous stock option deal, in effect betting that
Universal Express stock is going to drop in
value, and I mean really drop--he wants
to trade hundreds of thousands of shares of stock."
  "Lake had that kind of money just lying
around?"
  "You don't need a lot of cash to do one of these
options deals," Lassen said. "Four or five
million was enough to get the ball rolling."
  "Where could he get that kind of cash?"
  "You won't believe it," Lassen said. "He
borrows the money from Mcsorley, Brennan
Mcsorley--the president of Universal Equity
Services, with whom he used to do business--they had
a falling out some time back.
  Talk about balls--Lake makes a bet that
Universal Equity stock is going to take a
hit, using Universal's money!
  It's like betting the "Don't Come' line with your
mother rolling the dice.
  "Anyway, two days after Lake makes this
option deal, Cazaux blows up Universal
Express. Universal stock falls through the
floor.
  Lake now owns all this stock for pennies on the
dollar, and he turns right around and sells it when the
stock recovers. Lake is now rolling in money--
something like seventy million dollars' worth."
  "Maybe I'd better open an account with this
guy," Harley said.
  "Maybe not, Debbie," Lassen said. "Lake
is flush now, but in stead of going back to stocks and
bonds, he goes into aircraft leasing--big
aircraft, cargo aircraft. One of the planes
he buys is from this place in Atlanta, where those
two FBI guys were killed in that hangar.
  Another one of his planes is shot down over
Fort Worth. And guess what--one of the unexploded
bombs recovered from the Fort Worth bombing matches
a military lot-number of several cluster bomb
units stolen from a Nevada Navy arsenal several
days prior."
  "Christ--Harold Lake and this Ted Fell are
the bankers for Henri Cazaux?"
  "It's looking that way," Lassen agreed. "But
apparently Fell had a change of heart--I
guess working with a psychopath like Cazaux will do that to a
man, no matter how good the money is. So Harold
Lake dropped a dime on Henri Cazaux,
eh, Admiral?"
  "The phone call was made from Lake's private
office in Manhattan," Hardcastle said. "I
turned the information over to Judge Wilkes and the
FBI before I came out here. As usual, I
haven't heard a thing.
  What about other aircraft that Lake and Fell
purchased, Agent Lassen?
  Have you kept track of them?"
  "Unfortunately, I dropped the aircraft
line when they checked out in my initial investigation,"
Lassen replied. "When I matched Lake with the
Fort Worth plane, I tried going back to pick
up their trails.
  One I found--it's one of the smaller bizjets,
going through an avionics refit up in Newburgh.
So far I haven't found the rest yet.
  They still might be legitimate."
  "And they might not," Hardcastle said. "We've
got to find those planes."
  "Newburgh might be the place to start," Lassen
said eagerly.
  "Maybe we can take one of your awesome birds
up there. They're surely a couple of mean-looking
choppers."
  "Sounds good," Hardcastle said. He had his
aide Marc Sheehan radio for a CV-22
PAVE HAMMER to pick them up on the hastily
prepared helipad on the front lawn. While
Sheehan was on the radio, he received another
message and gave it to Hardcastle, who
turned to Lassen and Harley and said, "Guess
what, guys? Judge Wilkes herself is on the
way. She wants everyone to stop what they're doing
and wait until her and her team check in on the
scene."
  "Well, I think things have just ground to a halt
here," Lassen said.
  "FBI'S in charge of a terrorist incident, not the
Marshals or Secret Service."
  "Do you have enough to arrest Lake or Fell, Agent
Lassen?"
  "Definitely," Lassen replied. "You gave
me the caller ID with Lake's number, telling us
about Cazaux in this place--that makes him a
witness. I've circumstantially linked Lake with the
aircraft used in two of the bombings."
  "Then I'd suggest you go pick him up,"
Hardcastle said. "We can explain things to the FBI
later. Besides, you have to make room for judge
Wilkes' chopper."
  "Gotcha," Lassen said. He waited until the
big white-andorange PAVE HAMMER touched
down, then plugged his ears against the noise and trotted
off. No sooner had the aircraft roared off out of
sight than a small blue-and-white
Bell Jetranger zoomed into view, circled the
landing zone until a small smoke marker was set out
for them, then rapidly touched down.
  Judge Lam Wilkes, Director of the
FBI, was the first off the Jetranger, and she was
ready to explode with anger. Two agents followed
her off, both armed with Uzi submachine guns. She
didn't wait for the screech of her helicopter's
turbine engine to subside before laying
into Hardcastle: "You're coming with me, Admiral.
  You and Agent Harley and Agent Landers there and
anyone else who was responsible for this raid."
  William Landers, still wearing his body armor and still
carrying his H and K MP5 submachine gun,
asked, "Would you like a briefing on the operation before we
depart, Judge?"
  "Shut up, Bill," Wilkes interjected.
"You know damned well that SOG was involving itself in
an FBI'-DIRECTED investigation, yet you
proceeded without my authorization. I'm responsible
for all the casualties here, and I can assure you,
I'm going to rake you over the coals for each and every
one of them. Hardcastle, where was that .
  .
  . that thing, that tilt-rotor thing of yours
going?"
  . "It doesn't belong to me, Judge
Wilkes," Hardcastle replied, yawning.
  "It belongs to the Navy. We borrowed it for this
operation."
  "This operation? .. . This massacre, you mean!"
Wilkes shouted.
  "Where the fuck was that aircraft going?"
  "Following up on the tip we got this morning."
  "We checked those offices in Manhattan. They
look like they've been evacuated."
  "We think we know where Harold Lake and Ted
Fell might've gone," Deborah Harley said.
"Agents of the Marshals Service are going to check
it out."
  "I told everyone to stay put," Wilkes
seethed. "The FBI is in .
  charge of this investigation, Hardcastle. You're
interfering.
  You're not authorized to conduct any arrests or
investigations without my office's authorization. I'm
going to bust all--"
  "We think we got Henri Cazaux,
Judge," Hardcastle announced.
  Wilkes stopped in mid-sentence, staring
in complete shock first at Hardcastle, then at
Landers and Harley, and finally at the line of body
bags in front of the mansion. "Where is he?" she
asked skeptically, her voice a weak gasp.
"Show me." She turned to one of her aides and said,
"Get a P and P satellite ID unit in
here and secure this area.
  Get everyone out of that house. Now! Move it,
move it!"
  Wilkes followed Harley and Landers over to the
body bag with the bullet-shattered body of Henri
Cazaux inside, and Landers explained how they
made their identification. "It's not confirmed,"
Landers reminded her, "but from my operational notes,
one of the bodies we recovered could be him. He was
trying to escape in a motorcycle along with three
others; we got one of the other riders.
  Two escaped. State Police and the sheriffs are
out looking for them."
  He then explained what happened to the fourth
rider, and gave a thumbnail sketch of the raid
itself.
  When he was finished, one of his agents handed Landers
a note.
  "We ID'D the woman killed in the
raid," he said. "Jo Ann Rocci, a.k.a.
  Jo Ann Vega, address, Newburgh, New
York."
  "That's where the Marshals are headed to see if they
can find Lake and Fell," Hardcastle said. "This
place and Newburgh look like Cazaux's entire
U.s. base of operations."
  "I hope congratulations are in order,"
Wilkes said as she examined the body, then ordered
it to be zipped up and guarded, "but you still violated
my procedures. I expected no less from you,
Admiral Hardcastle, and I'm very disappointed with the
Secret Service and the Marshals for letting themselves
be led around by the nose by you, Admiral. Well, this
will be your last cowboy stunt, Hardcastle, I
promise you. We have a debriefing at the Justice
Department, all of you.
  The Bureau takes charge of these bodies and this
crime scene as of right now. Let's go." stewart
International Airport, Newburgh, New York
That Same Time The roadblocks were still in place,
but all cars were no longer being stopped and searched. The
limousine driver simply showed the bored
rent-a-cop an airport pass, and they were waved
in.
  Things had definitely calmed down here at
Stewart International Airport, and the commuter
flights were flying again.
  To Harold Lake, it made perfect sense--
Henri Cazaux abandoned Newburgh, so why not
use it? So what if it had State Police,
Army, Air Force, and FBI swarming all around
it? Evading the authorities was Cazaux's
headache, not his. The presence of all these uniformed
men gave Lake great peace of mind.
  Of course, being surrounded by his own personal
security detail helped.
  Using a portion of the money he was skimming from the
option contract deals he was doing for Cazaux,
Lake had hired his own small, well-equipped
army and air force. Starting with a new personal
secretary--a beautiful statuesque redhead who
could take Gregg dictation, type sixty words a
minute, and had a Browning 9-millimeter
automatic hidden in a holster beside her ample
left breast--Lake had a new chauffeur and
bodyguard, a new armored Lincoln sedan,
inside and outside guards at his East Side
apartment, a Gulfstream III jet with a
six-thousand-mile range, and a ranch in
central Brazil with yet another contingent of guards
stationed there.
  All this security had cost him one-third of all
the money he had skimmed from Cazaux over the past
few weeks, but it was well worth it.
  Henri Cazaux was relentless. Many of these
guards were nothing more than trip wires--their quick,
silent deaths would hopefully alert the inner guards
that Cazaux was on the hunt and closing in.
  Lake had no illusions about evading Cazaux--
he just hoped that the world's law enforcement authorities
and his own security force would get Cazaux before he
got too close.
  The first thing Lake had done when he bought the
Gulfstream was get the registration number changed and
get it repainted, which guaranteed both that it would
look different and would be out of sight until he
needed it. He didn't recognize the plane himself
when they drove up to it, and he was about to question the driver
when the chief of his security detail, a big,
football-player tight-end-looking guy named
Mantooth, emerged from it when the sedan pulled up.
  The sedan stopped several yards away from the
plane until it was quickly searched, then it pulled
up right to the foot of the open airstair
door. Mantooth stood in front of the sedan's
door, blocking the view of anyone from the main
commercial air terminal, but he did not open it himself
Lake and Fell had to open their own doors.
  According to Mantooth, the bodyguards' job was to stay
on the lookout with their hands free to reach for their guns
or subdue an attacker, not open doors or
carry luggage. "Everything's ready, Mr.
Lake," Mantooth said. "We're ready to go."
  "Then let's go," Lake said and quickly stepped
aboard the aircraft.
  The doors were closed as soon as Fell stepped
aboard. The big, roomy V.i.p interior of the
Gulfstream already made him feel safe, and the
increasing snarl of the bizjet's two big turbofans
and the sweet, husky smell of jet fuel helped
to soothe his jangled nerves.
  Lake met the ship's stewardess, a brunette
named Diane, who led him to the big,
light-gray-leather, fully reclining master's chair
on the right center side, buckled him in, and fixed
him a Bloody Mary as the jet began to move.
Ted Fell busied himself at the desk behind Lake,
checking that the phone and fax machine were working. "Forget
all that, Ted," Lake said. "No one is
going to call or fax us--that stuff's not even hooked
up."
  Fell looked at Lake as if he were
surprised at his boss's words; then, realizing he
was right and that these phones had never been activated,
fearing that Cazaux could easily find out about their
escape plans that way, he averted his eyes to the
richly carpeted floor and put his hands on his lap.
"It .. . it doesn't seem real," Fell said.
  "We're on the run. We're never coming back."
  "At least not as long as Cazaux, Townsend,
or Ysidro are walking the earth--which hopefully
won't be for too long," Lake said.
  "Just think of it as an extended and very, very secluded
vacation, Ted We'll start developing our offshore
banking and brokerage ties m a year or so,
making sure that everything is numbered and convoluted enough
so no one can trace the trading activity to us.
  We'll be back in the trading pits before you know
it. Meanwhile we work on our tans while--" Just
then the big Gulfstream came to a stop, the engines
wound down to low idle power, and the intercom phone
beeped. Fell reached for it, but Lake picked it
up. "What's going on .. . ?"
  "Orders from the tower, sir," the pilot
said. "Takeoff clearances have been canceled for all
flights. They're ordering everyone back to the
ramp."
  "Why the hell are they doing that?"
  "Don't know, sir," the pilot responded.
"I don't see any police activity."
  Lake knew why. He shot a murderous glare
at Fell and said, "Damn it, Ted, the fucking
FBI tracked us down."
  "But how? I made the call from New York.
No one knows about this plane or its location,
Harold. Maybe we were followed from the city.
  What are we going to do?"
  "How the hell should I know? Let me think,"
Lake said angrily.
  He searched out the large oval window near him,
looking to see if any police were converging on them,
but he was facing away from the main terminal. The
Gulfstream was on the parallel taxiway
approaching the end of the runway, with a United
Airlines MD-80 the only plane ahead of
them. On the intercom phone, Lake asked, "What
are your instructions, pilot?"
  "All aircraft were told to back-taxi on the
runway back to their original locations,
sir," the pilot responded. "We'll be
back-taxiing shortly and be back on the ramp in
about five minutes."
  "Are they blocking the runway?" Lake asked.
There was a rather long, uncomfortable pause as the flight
crew was obviously considering the possible
ramifications of this question. Lake shouted, "Well
... ?"
  "No, sir, nothing is blocking this runway," the
pilot finally replied.
  "Good. When that United Airlines plane gets
out of the way, you will ignore all instructions from the
tower and make the takeoff," Lake said. "That's an
order."
  "Sir, I can't follow an order like that."
  "If you don't, I'll come up there and shoot you
in the back of the head," Lake said as calmly and as
truthfully as he could. He carried a gun, but he
had fired it only once, several months ago, and
wasn't even sure if it was loaded. Mantooth,
who was sitting in a seat near the airstair, heard
Lake's words but did not register any surprise
at all--it looked as if it was okay with him if his
employer shot the pilots.
  "Then I hope you can fly this plane,
sir," the pilot said, "without a windshield. If you
shoot or try to open the cockpit door, we'll
stomp on the brakes, bust open the windscreens,
jump out, and run like hell."
  Lake obviously wasn't very good at threatening
anyone with bodily harm.
  "Okay, let's try it this way," Lake said.
"Make the takeoff and I'll give you twenty
thousand dollars."
  "Fifty thousand," the pilot immediately responded.
  "Each," the copilot chimed in.
  "Carter, Luce, you boneheads are getting paid
plenty to fly this machine--do as Mr. Lake
instructs you, or I'll shoot you myself," a deep,
menacing voice said behind them. It was the chief of the
security company, the bodyguard named Mantooth.
"Take your seat, Mr. Lake."
  "Are we taking off or not?"
  "My job is to protect you, Mr. Lake,"
Mantooth said. "You're assuming it's the FBI
or some other law enforcement agency out there, but I've
seen no evidence of that. This airfield has
obviously been compromised--whatever's going on,
I think you'll be safer in the air than on the
ground. We'll deal with the FAA later.
Now sit down and strap in. And if there's a
problem, let me know--there's no reason for you
to talk to the pilots. Is that clear, Mr.
Lake?"
  Lake was very unaccustomed to taking orders from
anyone, but he could do nothing else but nod silently
at the big bodyguard--he obviously knew what
he was doing.
  The Gulfstream moved up into the hammerhead,
poised for takeoff as soon as the airliner ahead
pulled off. Lake could just barely see the
MD-80 leave the runway when the pilot lined the
Gulfstream up on the centerline, spooled up the
engines to takeoff power, and released the .
  ..
  .. . but suddenly Lake could see a bright light
shining on the wing's leading edges and on the pavement beside
his jet, and even before the pilot again chopped the power
to idle, he knew they weren't going to make it. On
the intercom, he heard, "Emergency vehicles on
the runway, sir. We're blocked."
  Mantooth had drawn the biggest, meanest-looking
automatic pistol Lake had ever seen from a
shoulder rig, but Lake said, "Put it away,
antooth, it's the FBI out there. You have a
permit for that, I assume?"
  "Of course, Mr. Lake, but you'd better let
me--"
  "Put the gun in your holster and take off your
jacket so they see your gun first thing," Lake said.
"Everyone stays calm, everyone does as they're
told, no one resists, and no one, I repeat,
no one says anything. Not a word. If they tell you
you're under arrest, you immediately say, "I want
to speak with my attorney right now. " Got it?"
  To the pilots behind the closed cockpit doors,
Lake shouted, "Shut 'em down right here," then he
undogged the entry hatch.
  "No! Shut only the left engine down!"
Mantooth shouted to the cockpit. He turned
to Lake angrily: "Sir, you stay put. I'll
see what they want."
  "This is my problem, Mantooth."
  "No, it's my problem," Mantooth said. "You
hired me to protect you, sir. I'm a practicing
attorney here in New York State as well as
former military. We cooperate, but you don't have
to expose yourself to danger or get your rights
violated. Now, stay out--was
  "You're a good man, Mantooth,"
Lake said, "and your people are first-rate, but this shit
started long before you came on board."
  "Sir, you may have gotten yourself in deep shit, but
now your problems are my problems," Mantooth said.
"If you have to surrender to the police, we'll do it in
a controlled, orderly manner."
  "I need the government's cooperation .. . their
protection .
  ..
  to stay alive," Lake said. "I have to give them
whatever they want."
  "Why do you need government protection, sir?"
  "It's too complicated," Lake said. "I ..
. I've got to go out there."
  "I said, stay put, and that's an order,"
Mantooth said. He nodded to Diane, the
stewardess, who had produced a 10-millimeter
automatic pistol from nowhere and was guarding the
emergency exits, making sure no one came in from
behind them. "I'm your attorney in New York
State, representing you. You don't have to say a
word.
  Understand me?" Lake nodded--for the first time in a
long time, he felt as if things were truly under
control. Mantooth deployed the
airstairs and stepped outside.
  A huge, boxy-looking aircraft with two
huge helicopter rotors mounted on the tips of
short fat wings--certainly not a standard little
helicopter--hovered just a few hundred yards in
front of the Gulf stream, shining a large searchlight
right at them. It slowly began to descend onto the
rmway as a yellow-and-blue New York State
Police cruiser with lights flashing sped onto the
runway, turning around in front of the Gulfstream and
parking about twenty yards in front of the jet's
nose. A lone trooper got out of the car, right hand
on the butt of his service weapon, partially shielding
himself with his car door.
  On the car's PA speaker, he asked, "How
many others in the aircraft?"
  "Five," Mantooth shouted back.
  "Any armed?"
  "One, a private security employee."
  "Have him, Harold Lake, and Ted Fell step
out, hands in sight."
  Mantooth turned and motioned toward the entry
door--but instead of anyone stepping outside, the
airstairs retracted and the hatch closed tight.
"I said I want Lake and Fell out here
--right now!" the trooper shouted.
  But Mantooth wasn't watching the trooper--he
was watching the approaching aircraft. He
recognized it as a V-22 Osprey, used by the
Border Security Force for stopping drug
smugglers a few years earlier.
  A door opened on the right side and several armed
men got out ..
  .
  and at that same moment, both rear passenger
doors on the State Police car burst open,
two men rolled out carrying submachine guns, aimed
their guns at the V-22, and opened fire.
  Mantooth pounded on the side of the Gulfstream and
shouted, "Get out of here, nowff"...He drew his
sidearm, but it was too late--he saw the red glint
of a laser aiming beam flash across his eyes, and then the
whole world turned black.
  The Gulfstream's right engine roared almost to full
power, and the nose did a tight pirouette to the right,
the left wingtip barely edging over the roof of the
sedan. Gregory Townsend, dressed as a New
York State trooper, calmly reached into the
front seat of the car, withdrew a LAWS (light
Antitank Weapon System) rocket,
raised its sights, waited until the Gulfstream
was about seventy yards away, aimed, and fired.
  The Gulfstream III bizjet exploded in a
huge fireball, singeing the man's hair and
eyebrows with the heat.
  Townsend dropped the spent fiberglass launcher
tube, ignored the heat, the destruction, and his two
dead comrades behind him, calmly stepped into the sedan,
and raced away. He was picked up by a waiting
helicopter on the other side of the airport and was
gone minutes later with no possible pursuit.
  The White House That Same Time The bedside
phone was programmed with a gentle wakeup cycle:
the ring started out soft and barely audible, and gradually
rose in intensity, depending on the urgency of the
call as determined by the White House operator.
On all but a national defense-level emergency
call, the President usually needed three or four
good rings to wake up--but not the First Lady. At the
first gentle buzz of the phone she was quickly and
silently out of bed, her lean, agile body barely
flexing the super-king-size mattress. By the
second ring, without turning on a light, she had her
Armani robe and slippers on and was all the way
around to the President's side of the bed.
By the third ring she had touched the ACKNOWLEDGE
button on the phone and lightly touched her
husband's shoulder: "I'll be outside," she said
simply, giving him a peck on the cheek as he
struggled to shake out the cobwebs.
  The First Lady walked briskly across the
bedroom, opened one of the double doors, and stepped out
into the outer apartment, leaving the door partially open.
Theodore, the President's valet, was just showing a
steward inside, carrying a tray with a pot of strong
black Kona and walnut-covered pastries for the
President, a pot of Earl Grey tea and cold
cucumber slices for the First lady, and a small
stack of messages for the President's immediate
attention. A Secret Service agent stood by the
door, hands folded in front of his body, casually
scanning the outer apartment and occasionally talking into the
microphone mounted inside his left sleeve,
reporting to Inside Security that everything was
secure. "Good morning, ma'am," Theodore
greeted her pleasantly.
  "Good morning," the First Lady said distractedly.
She immediately snatched the messages off the tray,
sat down on the sofa, and began to read as the tray was
placed on the table before her and her tea was
poured. Theodore had been the White House valet
for two Administrations now, and it was damned
unusual to be greeted by the First Lady when these
early-morning crisis calls came in. Most
First Ladies stayed in the inner apartment and waited
for the hubbub to die down in the outer apartment and their own
personal staff to arrive and brief them--not this First
Lady. She always got up ahead of her husband,
never bothered to dress before coming out, always helped herself
to the messages from the Communication Center, and rarely
waited for her husband to come out before making notes or
phone calls or even going out to the Yellow Oval
Room, the main living room in the center of the
second floor, to talk to the Chief of Staff or
whoever else might out there waiting for a reply.
  "Anyone outside yet, Theodore?" the First
Lady asked.
  "No, ma'am," the valet replied.
  The First Lady picked up the phone beside the sofa.
She heard the standard "Yes, Mr. President" from
the operator, silently suffered the gender gaffe, and
said, "Location of the Chief of Staff and the Deputy
Attorney General."
  "One moment, ma'am .. . the Chief of Staff
is enroute, ETA five minutes. The
Deputy Attorney General is also enroute,
ETA fifteen minutes."
  "Ask the FBI Director, the Attorney
General, and the Communications Director to report
to the White House immediately," the First Lady said and
hung up. The word "ask" was, of course,
superfluous--it was an order, not a request.
Besides, the First Lady thought angrily, if the
President had to be awakened, the damned staff had
better be wide awake and in their seats by the time he
was up.
  "You can go in and see to the President,
Theodore," the First Lady said without looking up from
her reading.
  "Yes, ma'am." The Secret Service agent
reported that he was leaving the door, then walked
briskly over to the door of the inner apartment, and went
inside, followed by the valet. Another Secret
Service agent, a woman this time, took his place
at the outer apartment door and reported the room
secure.
  A few moments later, wearing a short-sleeved
college sweatshirt, jogging pants, and running
shoes without socks, his hair slicked back with
cold water, the President emerged from the
inner apartment. "I really could've used another four
hours" sleep today," he said, yawning. "Is this a
coffee call or not?"
  "It's a coffee call," the First Lady said.
  "Great," the President muttered. "Coffee
calls" meant he should have coffee because he probably
wasn't going to get any sleep the rest of the
morning. "What's the beef now? Not another
Cazaux attack, I hope."
  "Bad news and not-so-bad news," the First
Lady said, handing her husband the messages. "A
plane carrying a TV crew was accidentally shot
down by the Air Force."
  The President shook his head in exasperation,
reaching for his coffee and stuffing a pastry in his mouth.
"Ah, jeer .. ."
  "It happened earlier this morning, but the staff
decided not to wake you about it until later--I think
that was an error in judgment.
  You should have been called."
  "I agree," the President muttered, not really
agreeing with her-he was thankful for every bit of sleep
he was allowed to get these days.
  "What's the not-so-bad news?"
  "The FBI thinks they got Henri
Cazaux."
  "Hot damnff"...the President crowed. "That ain't
not-so-bad news, honey, that's great news! Dead,
I hope?"
  "Dead," the First Lady said. "Killed in a
shoot-out at an estate in northern New Jersey,
in a raid organized by the U.s. Marshals
Service and Admiral Hardcastle."
  "That Hardcastle is an arrogant
sonofabitch," the President said happily, "but
I could kiss him on the damned lips if he
engineered that raid."
  "The problem is, we didn't engineer it," the
First Lady said coldly.
  "We weren't briefed by Judge Wilkes or
Deputy AG Lowed about the operation, so we can
only assume that Hardcastle exceeded his authority
and free-lanced this raid."
  "Baby doll, I don't really care," the
President said, "as long as that Belgian bastard
is dead. We need to get confirmation on this, and they
better do it quick--maybe we can get the morning
news shows."
  "You are not going to show this kind .. . of glee on
international TV," the First Lady
decided. "You are going to praise the FBI, the
Justice Department, Governor Seale of New
Jersey--I'm sure there were some New Jersey
cops in on the raid too--and the Marshals Service
for their efforts. No mention whatsoever of
Hardcastle."
  The First Lady paused momentarily, then added,
"Except when it comes to an explanation of this
accidental shooting of that civilian plane.
  The message stated the civilian plane was at
fault and that the pilot who fired the missile
killed himself by flying his plane into the ocean .. ."
  "Oh, my .. ." the President exclaimed,
reaching for a muffin now.
  "dis. . and we'll put Hardcastle's fingerprints
all over that screw-up," the First Lady said, her
mind turning to high gear. "This will prove that Judge
Wilkes was right all along: the FBI was better
suited to solve this Cazaux problem after all, and that
Hardcastle's plan to use military forces was a
failure right from the start. You see, we've got
to wipe your fingerprints off this military idea."
  "It ain't gonna matter, sweetie," the
President drawled casually, sipping coffee.
"It's over. We can go back to normal
now."
  "What matters, dear, is the political
fallout. You approved using Hardcastle, so it's
your fault if innocent people got killed. We've
got to portray that fucker Hardcastle as a loose
cannon, a maverick .
  .. I know, we'll put him up in front of a
Congressional panel."
  The First Lady's legal mind was turning; she was
in full damage-control mode: "If
Hardcastle's a witness, he can't talk to the
press. You may have to strip him of his authority,
maybe even fire him."
  "That's easy," the President said, swallowing the
last of the muffin.
  "No one likes him anyway. What I need
to do is get back on the road, honey. I've
got an election to win yet. Kemp and Bennett have
been on the move in the east all during this Cazaux
thing, Wilson and Brown have been slam-dunking me
on the west coast, and Dole's been in Kansas
whipping up the midwest against me--I've been stuck
here in Washington too long."
  "I told you before, hiding behind the trappings of power
doesn't look good," the First lady said.
"If you simply declare the emergency over, some might
say it's political. Let Lowed and Wilkes
and the terrorism committee make a statement to the
press declaring the air defense emergency over, and have
Hardcastle's office release a statement taking the
fighters and the surface-to-air missiles off
alert status pending the investigation of the accident. The
press will listen to Lowed and Wilkes. When the
press starts wondering why you haven't gone on the
road yet, suddenly they'll find you on a six
state "fact-finding mission," beginning in
California. But let the staff take the heat. I
told you before."
  "I know, I know .. . let public opinion
make the tough decisions," the President said.
"Don't make headlines--embrace them."
  "Right," the First Lady said. "And we need
to make our peace with the producers of the TV show that
had their crew shot down by Hardcastle's goons--
we might have to feed them an exclusive interview from
the White House or from Air Force One while
we're on the road."
  "Let's do it on Air Force One--that always
impresses the hell out of the media."
  "We'll decide that later," the First
Lady said dismissively.
  "Again, it's important to emphasize that
Hardcastle's mismanagement caused the accident--
the Air Force crews were following orders. The
pressur "round-the-clock patrols and missiles
everywhere caused this terrible accident. Remember that."
  "Gotcha," the President said. "I'm gonna
go take a nap for an hour while the staff gets
their act together."
  "Let's get the photos done first," the First
Lady reminded him.
  "Photos?"
  "Of you and me, up in the middle of the night, working
after being notified of this terrible tragedy," the First
Lady said, reaching for the phone. "We've got to show
the people we're on the job, and need to show them ratty
sweatshirts and unshaven faces. Remember:
You're concerned over the accident. Look concerned.
You share their pain."
  The President sighed but nodded okay. Sometimes
even he had to admit his wife was a bit much.
  U.s. Department of Justice Office of the
Deputy Attorney General Washington,
D.c. Four Hours Later "I'm glad this is
over," Deputy Attorney General
Elizabeth Lowed said during the day's first meeting
of the President's Executive Committee on
Terrorism. "If this got any bloodier .. .
well, I'm just glad it's over." Left unsaid were
the words "It might really hurt the President's
reelection chances," but everyone present in the Oval
Office knew what Lowed meant to say. To Ian
Hardcastle, Lowed said, "Admiral, the
President is meeting with the producers of that trash
TV show "Whispers." What's the final opinion
as to the cause of the accident--and what happened to the
pilot who fired the missile?"
  "Captain Humphrey killed himself, plain and
simple," Lieutenant Colonel Also Vincenti
said to the Deputy Attorney General. "He was
overcome with grief because of the accidental shoot-down,
and he flew out over the ocean and crashed his plane
where he wouldn't hurt anyone else."
  The room got very quiet at that point--but not for very
long.
  "Jesus, what a damned mess," someone
muttered. Vincenti angrily searched for whoever it was
that spoke, but all he saw were averted eyes.
Finally one of the Assistant Secretaries of
Defense that Vincenti did not recognize
said, "Did he have a family? A wife and
kids?"
  "Tom Humphrey was a newlywed," Vincenti
replied.
  "They're--she's--expecting her first."
  "How the hell could this happen, Admiral
Hardcastle?" Ralph Mersky, the Secretary of
Transportation, asked. "This was a tragic but
avoidable accident, in my opinion. The Air
Force has very specific procedures to follow
during an intercept--and they weren't followed."
  "It was an accidental missile launch,
Secretary Mersky," Admiral Ian
Hardcastle responded. "He made a mistake,
that's all.
  They were chasing a hostile aircraft."
  "It was a TV news plane, for God's
sake! They identified themselves."
  "It was violating the law and flying like a hostile
aircraft, with its transponder and lights off,"
Hardcastle said. "The fighter leader got
disorientated."
  "Screwed the pooch, you mean."
  "I mean, got disorientated, was Hardcastle
snapped. "You should know about spatial
disorientation, Mr. Mersky--you're a licensed
pilot.
  Mundy lost control of his plane due to the sudden
flash of light from the TV crew on board the
Learjet and because of spatial disorientation, and
Humphrey reacted as if his leader had just gotten
hit by hostile fire. It was a mistake."
  "A damned costly mistake," Lowed
interjected. "Admiral, we've received word that
Congress is going to begin an investigation of the
shoot-down incident, and you've been subpoenaed
to appear." She nodded to one of her aides, who handed
a document to Hardcastle.
  He did not open it, but handed it to Sheehan--he
was so furious, he thought he would tear it up into tiny
pieces if he even touched it.
  "Until the matter has been resolved, your
duties and responsibilities with the Executive
Committee on Terrorism have been suspended,
effective immediately."
  "What?" Hardcastle retorted. "You've
suspended me? Why?"
  "We've been heavily criticized for your
approach to solving this problem, Admiral," Lowed
said. "Your tactics regarding the air
defense setup simply haven't worked--the accident
tonight near Atlantic City was a the raid on that
mansion in New Jersey, although probably
successful, were beyond your authority."
  "Secretary Lowed, I did what I had to do."
  "As we all knew you would, Admiral," Lowed
said, averting her eyes so Hardcastle could not see the
contempt in them. Yes, we all knew you'd come in
with guns blazing and the Bill of Rights be damned, the
Deputy Attorney General thought. I just wished
we made a stronger connection between you and Martindale.
There was still time to build that, Lowed reminded herself.
"I'm sorry, Admiral. The Congressional
investigation will commence shortly; we can assist you in
obtaining legal counsel." Lowed turned
to Vincenti and said, "Colonel Vincenti, you're
under similar subpoena, as an expert witness, so
like Admiral Hardcastle, you're prevented from
talking with the media about the incident.
  "The President has directed that the Air
Force will make a statement about the accidental
shoot-down," Lowed told the rest of her advisers
seated around her, "expressing our condolences to all the
families of that TV crew who suffered a loss."
It was obvious that the President wanted
to distance himself from that situation as well, Lowed thought--
yes, the crew on that Lear screwed up, but if there
was some political hay to be made out of his sorrow
for the deaths suffered, the President wanted to do it.
"General Skye .. . ?"
  "First of all, ma'am, if I may, we should
offer condolences to the family of Captain
Humphrey, the pilot lost after the accident,"
General Charles Skye replied. Skye was the
fifty-eight-year-old "triple-hat" commander of
U.s. Space Command, U.s. Aerospace
Defense Command, and the North American Air
Defense Command, charged with the air defense of the
central United States, North America, and
all U.s. assets in space. Tall,
distinguished, and completely no-nonsellse, Skye
showed his exasperation at these endless meetings for the
entire world to see.
  "It was obvious that the remorse and guilt he
felt caused him to crash his aircraft into the sea."
  was General .. ."
  "If you only offer condolences to the TV crew that
violated the law and caused the accident to occur in the
first place, ma'am, you and the President will lose a
lot of faith from your military
supporters," Skye said. "Captain
Humphrey, his wife and kid, and his unit deserve
better."
  "I didn't forget, General," Lowed shot
back angrily. "We weren't only going to offer
our condolences just to the TV crew. Thank you for
reminding me."
  But there was not much chance of General Skye's taking
the hint.
  "I'll go to Atlantic City and meet with the
unit commander myself."
  "I'd like to accompany you, General,"
Hardcastle said immediately.
  "Same here, General," Vincenti echoed.
  "Permission granted, gents," Skye said, "if
the justice Department or the Senate or whoever
wants a piece of your ass lets you come out and pay
your respects. Thank you. We'll arrange
to talk with the TV people later."
  "I'm so glad we got that settled," Lowed
said, rolling her eyes.
  "Now, about dismantling the air defense stuff ..
."
  "What?" Hardcastle retorted. ""I think
that's a bit premature, Miss Lowed."
  "That's a real stupid idea," Skye said, not
bothering to use polite words in this meeting. "Real
big mistake. The fighters are the first line of
defense--you've gotta have eyes up there to see
who's coming down on you."
  "General, perhaps you didn't understand--we got
Henri Cazaux," FBI Director Lam
Wilkes said. "The emergency is over."
  "Tell that to Lake, Fell, and that Gulfstream
crew up in Newburgh," Hardcastle said. "It was
a summary execution all the way-maybe it wasn
"Cazaux's operation has been blown away,
Admiral," Wilkes said. "We got his mansion,
several of his soldiers, his bimbo, and his banker.
  We've got a line on several million
dollars belonging to Cazaux's organization--he's
frozen, bankr-lpt."" "We can't account for
several aircraft that Lake purchased,"
Hardcastle said, "and several of the weapons stolen from
Naval Air Station Fallon that have been linked
to Cazaux. He's still got to be considered
dangerous."
  "Cazaux or not, Judge Wilkes, if the
Commander in Chief orders me to take the air
defense stuff down, I'll do it,"
Skye said.
  "I haven't received such an order, so they stay.
It's that simple."
  "I'm concerned that there will be more accidents if we have
all these missiles and fighters in the air,
especially with air traffic controls lifted,"
Transportation Secretary Mersky said. "Besides,
the fighters didn't help over Atlantic City
or over Fort Worth, did they?"
  "You don't turn these boys loose to do their
jobs, Mr. Mersky, and the job won't get
done," Skye said. "You set up an air cordon
and the civilians they can operate inside the cordon,
they better understand that if they play games and dick
around, they'll get their asses shot off, pure and
simple."
  "General, the President is afraid
to publicly announce that the emergency is over, because
he feels, and I concur, that such an announcement will
only attract the copycat bombers or
Cazaux's lieutenants out Attorney General
Lowed said. "Instead, we want to recommend to the
President to quickly but quietly take down the air
defense network and return the air traffic system
in this country back to normal.
  Airport security will still be at maximum
levels, and we want to implement an air marshal
program again, but we want to do away with the special
air cordons, the military weapons in place
around the airports under Class B airspace, and
all military control of access to the air traffic
control system."
  "The President wants a gradual increase in
the numbel- of flights," Mersky added. "I'll
concede that giving access to uncontrolled or VFRIEND
air traffic should be phased in over a much longer time
frame, but the President's top priority is to do
everything he can to encourage the airlines to start flying
again."
  "General Lowed, Secretary Mersky, if all
you propose is allowed to happen, the military
won't be able to stop a Cazaux type again,"
Hardcastle said. "There are just too many aircraft
out there doing suspicious or even downright illegal
things."
  "The only way to make sure we can pick a
terrorist flight out from all the rest of the inbound
flights is to increase the number of interceptors and
decrease the number of flights until the two
balance out," Colonel Vincenti added.
  "And we're telling you, Colonel, that's not what
the President wants, and that's not what the
American people want," Elizabeth Lowed said
finally. "Besides, it's not the military's job to find
and stop these terrorists--it's my job, and the
FBI'S job.
  "I'll pass along your reservations, General
Skye, Admiral Hardcastle, but I'm
recommending to the President that we immediately ground
all fighter patrols over the United States."
  "Maybe we should go tell the President our
opinions together, General Lowed," Skye suggested.
  "General, the purpose of having this committee is
so a horde of people with a horde of different opinions
aren't marching in and out of the Oval Office all day,"
Lowed said, refusing to let the four-star Air Force
general bully her around. "My job as chairman
of the Executive Committee on Terrorism is not
only to coordinate day-to-day antiterrorist
operations, but to analyze the threshold of danger
existing in the country, determine what are the best
possible options to deal with the danger, and present my
opinions to the President.
  - "In my opinion and in the opinion of the
majority of members of this committee, the
danger has subsided to a sufficient level, and the
hazards of continued military interceptor and
military air traffic control have increased to such a
dangerous level, that we feel we can recommend that
the military's involvement in this emergency can be
substantially decreased."
  "General Lowed, I caution you about using the
President's wishes to form the basis of this
committee's policy decisions," Hardcastle
interjected. "The President wants everything back
to normal--we all do. But we feel the time's not
right. At least let's wait a few more weeks
until the FBI analyzes Cazaux's
financial records from Lake's computers, sifts
through the debris at the mansion in New Jersey,
tracks down whoever killed Lake and Fell in
Newburgh, and bags more members of Cazaux's
organization."
  "This committee is not a Presidential rubber
stamp, Admiral," Lowed snapped. "Our
respective staffs have been working overtime on this
problem, and we've all come up with the same conclusion:
we don't need the military anymore."
  "In my opinion we never did," FBI
Director Wilkes said. "All we
needed was a little more cooperation, and this situation
probably could've been solved earlier."
  "We don't want to totally dismantle the
emergency system or cut out the military,"
Mersky said. He opened his staff's summary sheet
and went on: "I propose the following: we keep
all military surveillance in place except for the
fighter interceptors. We keep the short-range
ground-based air defense systems in place,
namely the mobile Avenger Stinger systems, but
deactivate all Patriot and HAWK systems.
Airport and aircraft security will stay at
maximum levels, with security situations
reevaluated daily on a case-by-case
basis. We deactivate all emergency air
cordons in Class B airspace, but we
mandate that all aircraft in Class B
airspace must be on a flight plan--no
aircraft allowed in Class B airspace with
pop-up clearances."
  "Any other discussion?" Lowed asked.
  "Discussion seems to be pointless," Skye said.
  "Very well," Lowed said. "I move that
Secretary Mersky's and the Department of
Transportation's recommendations be
adopted by the committee and presented to the President
immediately."
  The motion was seconded and approved. The
Secretary of Defense's representative voted
in the affirmative for General Skye, and, because he
had been suspended from the Executive Committee
on Terrorism, Hardcastle's negative vote
was counted as an abstention.
  "Thank y morning, unless the situation changes.
General Skye, I don't think we'll require
your presence unless a member of the committee
requests it."
  "Fine with me, General Lowed," Skye said.
"This little game of power politics is a total
waste of my friggin" time anyway. But I'll
tell you this, Miss Lowed: I'm sending my
strongest reservations about this committee's actions up
my chain of command. I'm advising the Chief of
Staff of the Air Force that your recommendations do not
reflect my opinion, and I'll ask that he
present my opinions to the Secretary of the Air
Force and on to the White House--frankly, I
don't trust you to give the President the word for
me. It's nothing personal, General Lowed .. ."
Skye paused, looked at Lowed, then
shrugged and said, "Okay, it is personal. In my
humble and insignificant opinion, any person who
lets her people, even guys like Hardcastle, hang out
to dry like you did and ignores all the danger signs
around her is an asshole--ma'am. And any
committee who allows all of the above to happen on their
watch should be publicly kicked in the ass."
  "I encourage free expression in my meetings,
General Skye," Lowed said tightly, "but now
I'm giving you fair warning--get control of your
tongue and your attitude before they get you into serious
trouble."
  "My comments are totally on the record, ma'am
--I trust they'll stay there."
  "Count on it, General," Lowed responded
bitterly.
  "Then my apologies if I've offended anyone
--you know who you are," Skye said, collecting his
papers and rising to depart. "I hope the President
knows what he's doing, that's all." He got to his
feet and dismissed himself from the meeting; Hardcastle,
vincenti, and Sheehan followed.
  "I hope you get around to busting Skye's nuts
when you get a chance," Wilkes said after the rest of the
committee had departed.
  "Skye's already dug himself a hole he can't
crawl out of," Lowed said.
  "We've got a bigger concern to talk about--
namely, the President's fund-raiser in
California."
  "Security will be airtight," Lam Wilkes
said. "The President will be perfectly safe,
especially once we get those missiles and
fighters put away."
  "I agree," Lowed said. "But I need all your
best efforts on making sure that the body you got in
the morgue is Cazaux, and that his organization is
shut down. I'm putting the President's
security in your hands because you said you could handle it."
  "It'll be taken care of, General Lowed,"
Wilkes assured her.
  "It'd better be," lowed said. "The
President's advance team deploys in less than
two days from now, and once they're on the road, every
crazy and nut case will be out there hunting the
President down."
  She silently looked at the FBI Director
for a moment, then added, "Frankly, Judge, you've
been one step behind the Marshals and Hardcastle this
entire crisis. In case you've
forgotten, there's an election coming up next year, and
how the President reacts to this crisis is
important.
  He wants to be seen in the sky and on the road
again, and he doesn't want to be seen hiding behind
F-16 fighters or Patriot missiles--or
too many government agents."
  Pease International Tradeport Portsmouth,
New Hampshire Two Nights Later Pease
Interilational Tradeport was once Pease Air
Force Base, a small but vital Strategic
Air Command bomber base, closed in 199-- and
converted to civilian use. The eight large hangars
that once housed B-52 Stratofortress bombers
and KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling
tankers now housed a collection of small
fixed-base operators servicing light civilian
planes--one hangar now held two dozen light
planes in the same space that once could house
only one B-52.
  The base operations building had been converted into a
Bar Harbor Airlines commuter terminal, flying
passengers throughout New ENGLAND.
  The original company which gave Pease
Tradeport its "international" designation
was Lufthansa Airlines, who in 1992 built
a modern office complex in nearby Kittery,
Maine, and converted three of the large maintenance
hangars at Pease to a jumbo aircraft
refurbishment and inspection facility, one of the most
modern facilities of its kind in the world. The
location was perfect--within an hour's flying time of
six of the top ten busiest airports in North
America, close to many European and Asian
transpolar flight routes, good schools, generous
tax incentives, no income tax, a rural
atmosphere but close to Boston and the high-tech
Route 128 Corridor of northeastern
Massachusetts. Pease International
Tradeport was on the verge al becoming a major
American airport, a vital reliever to already
crowded and expensive Boston-Logan
International.
  Its popularity and success soon became its
number-one problem.
  There had been two major crashes per year
since the facility was opened.
  Seacoast-area residents, backwoods
environmentalists, all perturbed rich
Massachusetts vacationers with beach homes
in the Vineyard and Narragansett kicked the golden
goose and told Lufthallsa to scale back;
indignant Lufthansa did them one better and
left for the open arms, tax breaks, and relative
peace of Raleigh, North Carolina.
  Pease International Tradeport became a
virtual ghost town practically overnight.
  But there were still high-tech heavy jet maintenance
facilities at Pease, so occasionally the
three-thousand-pound Cessnas would get a visit from
one of their three-hundred-thousand-pound cousins. The
busiest destination was Portsmouth Air, which leased
about a third of Lufthansa's aircraft
refurbishment facility at Pease but still struggled
to stay in business.
  The Boeing 747-200 jetliner with Nippon
Air livery had been flown into Pease the day after
its prepurchase inspection at Mojave, and since
then was locked away inside one of the remodeled
hangars, one big enough to house the entire plane
instead of leaving a tail section sticking out through a
hole in the hangar doors. The hangars were
designed to allow environmentally safe aircraft
painting, completely sealing toxic fumes in and
allowing multiple painting crews to work at
the same time. Tanker trucks filled with paint were
brought in to repaint the airliner, and work continued on for
several days.
  Pease's air traffic control tower closed at
nine P.m and by nightfall the airport was silent,
but it was not unusual to get after-hours traffic. At
several minutes past one A.m a Piper
Aerostar twin-engine plane self-announced on
Pease's tower frequency, entered right traffic for
runway 30, and lined up to land. Since Pease was
one of the pilot's favorite and frequent
destinations, he knew it was best to stay high and
delay landing until after midfield, still with six
thousand feet of runway remaining, in order to shorten
the taxi time to the general aviation ramp on the
northern half of the field. No problems with the landing,
no problems taxiing clear of the runway and heading
toward the dead-quiet transient parking ramp. The
pilot noticed activity at the Portsmouth Air
maintenance facility, but that was normal--those guys
worked day and night on the few jumbo jets that came
in these days.
  Everything was going fine until the pilot, by himself in
the Aerostar, decided to shut off the electric
fuel-boost pumps after turning onto the
parallel taxiway. Seconds later, both
engines sputtered and quit, vapor-locked. He
nearly drained his battery trying to restart an
engine. Disgusted, he braked to a halt, shut his
plane down except for the strobes to keep another
plane from ramming his Aerostar, grabbed his
briefcase, locked up, and headed toward the
terminal to find someone to help him tow his
six-thousand-pound plane to the ramp.
  The general aviation FBO and the Bar Harbor
Airlines terminals were long closed. The only
other sign of life at the airport was Portsmouth
Air, so he walked over to the huge hangar
complex. The complex was surrounded by a twelve-foot
fence topped with barbed wire, but a Cypherlock
gate near the parking lot was not fully closed, so the
pilot walked in. The front door to the main
office was locked.
  He walked toward the offices to the west side of the
hangar itself and tried another door--locked too.
But just as he walked past it to find another door, the
steel-sheathed door banged open, someone loudly
hawked and spit outside, then let the door
go--whoever it was never saw the pilot behind it. The
Aerostar pilot caught the door before it
closed and stepped inside the hangar .. .
  .. . and what he saw inside made his jaw
drop in surprise--it was Air Force One, the
President of the United States' plane!
  The huge Boeing 747 airliner completely
filled the hangar.
  White on the top, light blue and black on the
bottom, with a darkblue accent running from the upper
half of the nose section and sweeping along the
mid-fuselage windows to the tail, it was an awesome
sight to behold. The pilot, a professor at
Dartmouth, knew that Air Force One used to come
to Pease quite often when President Bush would fly here
on his way to his family retreat in
Kennebunkport years ago, but he never had the
chance to see him or his entourage arrive--now he was
getting a good firsthand look at one of the most
distinctive planes in the world!
  He could plainly see the words UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA on the side of the
fuselage, although the lettering looked .. . well, a
bit sloppy, not even or symmetrical at all.
He was near the tail section, and he could see the
Air Force chevron at the base of the vertical
stabilizer, and the serial number 28000
and the American flag midway up the vertical
stabilizer, painted as if the staff side were forward
and the flag were stretched taut and blowing aft. The
smell of paint fumes was very strong--it looked as
if Air Force One was getting a toucllup or a
good cleaning. Funny--the pilot never would've
guessed they'd do maintenance on Air Force Ones
up here in little Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
although they'd obviously keep that kind of information
secret.
  The pilot began walking toward the front of the
plane, under the right wingtip. He passed a few
workers, but they didn't pay too much attention to him.
He stood along the wall of the hangar, watching a
guy painting the Seal of the President of the United
States near the nose, and, like the lettering on top, the
paintjob on the seal was passable but not very
professional. It looked okay from a distance, but up
close it "Excuse me, sir," he heard. The
pilot turned and was confronted by a tall, very
mean-looking guy with short-cropped hair, wearing a
dark-green flight suit. He looked like a Marine
Corps aviator. He looked mean and nasty enough
to kill with his bare hands, but fortunately he seemed
in a good--or at least a forgiving--mood.
  "This is a restricted area."
  "I'm sorry," the Aerostar pilot said.
"I'm Doctor Clemenz, professor of
history at Dartmouth. "Clemens with a z, was he
added, as if often asked how to spell his last name
to make it jive with the unusual pronunciation. "My
Aerostar is stuck out there on the taxiway.
  I was looking for someone who might give me a
tow."
  "No problem, sir," the Marine said with a thick
Brooklyn accent.
  "But I better get you out of this area before we all
get our dicks in a wringer." He escorted the
pilot along the wall toward the front of the hangar.
Workers saw the big Marine, wore shocked
expressions on their faces, and stepped toward him but
retreated after a few steps.
  "You guys actually service Air Force One
here?"
  "Not much use in denying it, is there, sir?" the
Marine said jovially.
  "But please keep it under your hat, all right,
sir? I've already got a lot to explain--like how you
got inside here."
  "Front gate was ajar, side door was
opened by someone wanting to get a breath of' fresh air
.. . listen, am I under arrest? I probably
shouldn't say anything else if I am."
  "I'm not placing you under arrest, sir-unless you
try to run."
  "I assure you, I won't .. . uh, I'm
sorry, your name .. .
  ?"
  "Captain Cook, Dave Cook," the big
guy said, extending a hand.
  Clemenz accepted it. "Marines?" Cook
nodded. "I always thought the Air Force took care of
Air Force One."
  "The Air Force flies it--the Marines are
supposed to guard it," Cook said after a short,
uncomfortable pause. Clemenz nodded, accepting that
explanation--the Marines guarded the White House,
why not Air Force One? "The operative words here
are "supposed to."
  his
  "Shit happens," Clemenz said, trying to console
the soldier and sorry that his trespassing was
probably going to get the friendly Marine into big
trouble, maybe even ruin his career.
  "Yes, sir, it surely does," the
big Marine said. He led the doctor through a
doorway into an office, past more startled men. Most
of them wore civilian clothes but were very heavily
armed. Cook waved them away before they could grab
Clemenz, dismissing them with a sharp shake of his head--
Clemenz could easily feel the daggers darting from
Cook's blazing eyes to the guards, silently
admonishing them for their miss.
  He grabbed one man tightly by his upper arm and
whispered something in his ear, then let him go. "Have a
seat, Doctor Clemenz.
  Coffee?
  Tea?"
  "Not unless I'm going to be here awhile,
Captain," Clemenz said with a wry smile,
afraid that's exactly what was going to happen.
  "I don't think so, Doctor Clemenz," the
soldier said, picking up a clipboard and finding a
pencil in a desk drawer. He copied
Clemenz's Hanover, New Hampshire,
address, employment information, and names and a nearby--
no relatives in Portsmouth, only a few
acquaintances.
  Clemenz enjoyed fishing and lobstering and came
to Portsmouth often, but he was fairly new
to the area and usually came only in the summer, so he
knew few people in town. He said he shared a house with
another professor up in York Harbor. "How
were you going to get to the house, sir?"
  "Airport car," Clemenz said. "Airport
lets us park a car here for fifty dollars a
month. It's just an old beat-up Datsun. It's
parked right over by the DOT building .. . is this
going to take much longer, Captain? I left my
strobes on so nobody would run over my
Aerostar.
  Can you help me tow it to the main parking ramp? I
don't mean to rush you, since I was doing the
trespassing, but it's getting late and I--"
  "Of course, sir, was Cook replied. "If you
don't mind, sir, we'll follow you to your house in
York Harbor, just to verify your destination.
  Will that be a problem, sir?"
  "No .. . no, I suppose not .. ."
  "Was there someone you needed to call? Leave a
message at the FBO about your plane?"
  "When they see the plane parked out front,
they'll know it's me."
  "Very well. I think we're done here," Cook
said. "I would like to take some pictures for
our files. Do you have any objections to that?"
  "No, I guess not."
  "Good. And sir, I'll probably say this two
or three times before you leave, but you must be
absolutely clear on this: what you've seen tonight must
be kept secret. I'm sure you can easily
imagine the danger if any terrorists,
saboteurs, or kooks knew that Air Force One
is serviced here. Our security is usually very good,
but if an amateul- can stumble into this place,
imagine what a trained terrorist squad can do."
  "I understand perfectly," Clemenz said
earnestly.
  "Good," Cook said. "Let's get some
pictures and we'll wrap this up.
  This way, sir." Cook led the way through the door
back out to the main hangar, allowing Clemenz to pass
in front of him .. .
  .. . and when the professor exited the office,
he saw about three dozen men, the workers that had been
working on Air Force One, standing a few paces
outside the door, backdropped by Air Force One
itself towering over them. They were looking at Clemenz
with a collective expression mix of surprise and
.. . What? Pity? until Captain
(look emerged from the office. Then their expressions
changed to one of downright, undisguised, genuine
fear.
  Clemenz somehow knew he was a dead man even
before he felt the hand grasp his hair, yank his head
up and forward, and felt the sharp prick against the back
of his neck at the base of his skull as the knife was
driven up along the top of his vertebrae and into the
base of his brain. He gave a short cry, not
necessarily from the pain as much as from the surprise
and the resignation. He did not feel anything else
after that.
  Henri Cazaux let the corpse dangle at the
end of his knife for several seconds, letting all
the workers and security men get a good look. No
one dared avert his eyes, although one man mercifully
fainted when he saw the body quiver in its last
throes of death.
  "This man just walked in here!" Cazaux shouted.
"He just walked in!
  No one bothered to stop him, challenge him, even
look at him, although he is obviously not wearing an
identification badge or the clothing code of the day.
He is going to hang here in front of the hangar as a
reminder to every one of you to keep vigilant.
Now get back to work--the timetable is going to be
moved up. Move!"
  Armed guards were taking three men away in
handcuffs as Tomas Ysidro and Gregory
Townsend came up to Cazaux. Cazaux tossed
the dead professor off his knife against the wall--the
man had died so quickly that almost no blood seeped from
the knife wound.
  "Sorry about that, Henri," Ysidro said
casually, kicking the corpse so the small trickle
of blood from the wound dripped on the man's clothes
and not onto the hangar floor. "If I would've
gotten here earlier I could have supervised these bozos
better, but I can't be at two places at
once."
  "Can you be in position by tomorrow night?" Cazaux
asked.
  Townsend thought for a moment; then: "I think so,
Henri.
  We'll need the Shorts to move the guys and their
equipment, but I think we--"
  "Don't think, Townsend," Cazaux said
menacingly. "Can you be in position by tomorrow night or
not?"
  "I'd prefer two nights to get
everyone into proper position, Henri," Townsend
said, "but the answer is yes. I can be ready to go tomorrow
night."
  "This man will be missed in two nights" time,
perhaps sooner-we must go tomorrow night," Cazaux said,
wiping his blade clean and putting it back into its
hidden sheath. "You will leave as soon as you can get the
Shorts loaded. I'll see to the loading and
preflight here.
  his
  "You'll take care of the flight plan, Henri?"
Townsend asked.
  "Remember the FAA order 7210.3--we need
sixteen hours."
  "I remember, Townie, I remember,"
Cazaux said, his mind racing several hours ahead.
  Since Air Force One was a SAM, or
Special Air Mission, military aircraft,
a flight plan for their flight to Washington could be
filed only through a special teletype system.
Fortunately, they had access to such a terminal at
Pease International Tradeport. The 157th
Air Refueling Group, a small New
Hampshire Air National Guard aerial
refueling tanker unit, used the system
for the Atlantic Tanker Task Force, which
coordinated all aerial refuelings for flights from
Europe to North America, including for Air
Force One. Also, Pease Tradeport, when it
used to be Pease Air Force Base, was a
favorite vacation stop for President George
Bush and his family, so a terminal was installed and
kept at the airport. Cazaux's organization
had bribed several of the Guardsmen at the airport
to do a variety of things, such as alert them when any
state or federal inspectors were inbound, monitor
the status of the state police patrols, and
procure fuel and other aircraft parts and
supplies.
  For the flight of their fake Air Force One, they
would have one of the Air National Guard controllers
input a military flight plan into the system,
originating not from Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
but from Manchester, New Hampshire, the site of
an upcoming and widely publicized debate between the
expected 1996 presidential candidates,
organized by the League of Women Voters. The
flight plan, using the call sign SAM-2800
(Sam stood for Special Air Mission, the
standard call sign for military flights
such as this; 2800 was the tail number of one of the two
VC-25A Air Force Ones in the inventory),
had to be filed not earlier than sixteen hours from the
proposed takeoff time, although the exact takeoff time
could not be recorded.
  Immediately after the counterfeit Air Force One was
airborne, the Air National Guard controller would
issue an Also, NOT, or Alert Notification
message, to a special office in the FAA Air
Traffic Control Command Center known as
ATM-200, requesting special priority handling
and revising SAM'S call sign to Executive
One Foxtrot, signifying that a member of the
President's family or White House staff
(but not the President himself--that would be too easy
to verify) was on board the aircraft. The ALNOT
would be retransmitted by ATM-200 to the various
Air Route Traffic Control Centers along the
route of flight as well as the Air Force Air
Defense Sector Operations Command Centers,
letting everyone know that a member of the President's
entourage was airborne.
  The plan after that was that the controller would be knocked
unconscious so he could claim that he was overpowered
and his equipment used without his knowledge--of course,
Cazaux would see to it that he was executed to keep
him quiet.
  "I'll take care of all those details,"
Cazaux was saying. "Now get moving." Townsend
and Ysidro turned to leave, but Cazaux stopped
them by adding, "And I want no more slipups.
Security will be tight and everyone will follow the plan
to the letter, or I will spend the rest of my days on
earth hunting down and executing each and every one of you.
Now get going." rart 5 Andrews Air Force
Base, Camp Springs, Maryland Early the
Next Morning Tomas Ysidro had made his own
green active-duty U.s. military ID card
long ago--his was Army, showing his home base as the
Defense Language School, the Presidio of
Monterey, California; he carried a set of
orders showing him as a visiting instructor in Farsi
and Mandarin to the 89th Air wing to teach some of the
aircrew members some basic foreign language
skills for an upcoming presidential trip. But
getting onto Andrews Air Force Base, the
place where the President of the United States'
planes were kept, was child's play, and he didn't
need to show any of his carefully prepared
credentials. The guards at the virginia
Avenue gate were still doing hundred-percent ID
checks, but there were no dogs, no searches, no questions
asked. The smiling Air Force bitch in her
toy-soldier blue fatigues, silly black
beret, white dickey, and pretty spit-shined
boots waved the car right on through after a quick flash of the
card, and four international terrorists were on a
major military air base with ease.
  "No vehicle checks or searches," one of the
terrorists remarked after they were well past the guard
gate. "Not even a thorough check of your card."
  Ysidro had been careful to SCUFF up his
ID card and not make it look too new or too
perfect, but the apparent lack of' diligence did
puz7.1e him. Weren't they concerned about Cazaux
any longer? "W can still be monitored
electronically," Ysidro warned, "so everyone
stay sharp." That did not need repeating--driving right
into the jaws of the enemy, the ones that were out looking for them
--was not a comforting or casual activity at all.
But the apparent lax security made them breathe a
bit easier and helped them concentrate on the tasks
ahead.
  They drove north on Virginia Avenue and
followed the signs about a half mile to the
base golf course--and found, to their amazement, that it
was open. It had been closed for days because the Army
had placed an entire Patriot missile
battery there, assigned to protect the Capitol,
Andrews, Washington National, Dulles, and other
high value targets in the D.c. area from air
attack. Ysidro turned right onto South
Wheeling Road and there it was, right in front of
them-an entire Patriot missile battery,
less than a thousand feet away on Wyoming
Road. The Army Patriot missile encampment,
within sight of the end of runway 36 Left, was well
in the process of being dismantled--the back nine
holes of the course were still not usable, but the front nine
were open, and golfers were out there just a good five wood
shot or two away from some of the Patriot
launchers.
  "Well, what the fuck .. ." Ysidro said,
surprised and pleased by what he saw. "Maybe we
should've hidden our gear in fuckin' golf bags."
They could see all eight Patriot missile
launchers lowered and configured for road march, and the
large flat "drive-in-theater" antenna array still
raised but with soldiers working on and in front of
it--obviously it wasn't radiating, because
that man in front of the array would be fried to a crisp
by the amount of electromagnetic energy that thing put
out when it was radiating. The electrical power
plant vehicle was still running and the command vehicle was
apparently still manned, but the Patriot site itself was
apparently decommissioned.
  Ysidro's assignment had been to destroy it.
  "What do we do now?" one of the commandos asked.
  "We do what we've been assigned to do--it'll
just be a hell of a lot easier," Ysidro said.
"The electrical truck is still running, so this could
just be a maintenance period--the Patriot site at
Fort Belvoir or Dulles might be taking up the
slack." Two other commando squads had been
assigned to take out the Patriot sites at
Davison Army Air Field at Fort
Belvoir and at Washington-D-llles
International Airport, but if those Patriot
sites were closed down as well, they would have a much
easier time of it. At last check, the l lawk
missile sites at East Potomac Island
Park Golf Course near George Washington
University, Rock Creek Golf Course
neal- Walter Reed Hospital, and the East
Capitol (country Club golf course
were still operational; other teams were assigned to take out
those sites as well. But this Patriot site at
Andrews was the Integrated Command Center, or
I.c.c, which controlled all of the Hawk and
Avenger air defense units in the region.
  i, The terrorist group took a right turn on
Wisconsin Road, a left onto South
Perimeter Road, and headed for the housing area and east
runway side. Andrews Air Force Base had
two, two-mile-long parallel runways, with the
main part of the base on the west and the enlisted and
junior officer housing area to the east. The fighter
alert area was on the south side of the east runway,
with two fighters on alert with ladders attached,
ready to go; two more fighters were parked nearby, but
neither appeared to have weapons loaded. Surprisingly,
the guards at the entrance to the housing area had been
removed. They doubled back onto South Perimeter
Road, heading for the main base side.
  A small lake south of the west runway had
numerous creeks and ditches flowing into it, all
leading toward the airfield--that was the best way
to approach the runways.
  They drove north on Arnold Avenue along the
rows of hangars on the main base side.
Every Air Force V.i.p plane in the inventory
was visible--small jets to big helicopters to a
huge white E-4 Airborne Command Post, a
modified 747 resembling Air Force One but
specially designed for the President and military
leaders to run World War III from the air. They
did not see an Air Force One itself. But then again,
they didn't need to--they were bringing their own.
  They turned right on C Street and tried to go
north on Eagle Road, the street right in front
of the newer hangars, but roadblocks ahead steered
them back onto Arnold Avenue--that told them that
the hangars behind that section of Eagle Road had the
really valuable hardware.
  Still, there were no patrols, only barricades.
  The two hangars that were accessible from the one block
of Eagle Road they were allowed to drive on had a
clear view of the alert fighter area across the
airfield, and by using binoculars they could even see
the upraised Patriot antenna array to the
southwest, pointing westward toward the capital.
  "Let's remote-control everything from here--no
use in risking exposure if it ain't necessary,"
Ysidro said. "We'll use the short be range
radio detonators for maximum
efficiency, and we'll station ourselves within missile
range of the runways in case we're needed."
  "May not be able to remote the Patriot stuff,"
one of the other terrorists said. He pointed to a
red-and-white block building at the end of the
runway. "I.l.s transmitter. Could interfere
with the radio signal, or it could activate the
detonator as soon as the mine is armed."
  "Fine--we'll do it face-to-face. I like it
that way," Ysidro said.
  "Security is a joke anyway--this looks like
a walk in the park.
  If this isn't some kind of setup, this will be the
easiest job we've ever had to do."
  Atlantic city International Airport Later
That Evening At precisely sunset, the formation
leader radioed, "Ready, ready .. .
  now. Three, clear to depart."
  "Three," Lieutenant Colonel Also
Vincenti acknowledged, gently pulled on the control
stick and put in a notch of power. He was flying the
third F-16 A.d.f Fighting Falcon in a
V-formation of five, passing over the base
headquarters building near the Air National Guard
ramp at Atlantic City Airport.
From the ground, the V-formation stayed intact but with a
large gap between the leader and the number-five
aircraft to the right of the leaden-the "Missing Man"
formation, signifying that one of their comrades had died in
the line of duty. Vincenti, as the main fighter
representative to the Executive Committee on
Terrorism in charge of the Cazaux emergency, had
requested and was given the honor of flying as the
"missing man" in the 177th Fighter Group's
memorial-service flyover for Tom Humphrey,
who had died in the crash of his F-16.
  Vincenti climbed to two thousand feet, turned
on his transponder so air traffic control could
pick him up on radar, then checked in with
Atlantic City Approach Control:
"Atlantic City Approach, Devil
Zero-Three, overhead Atlantic City
International, passing two for five thousand."
  "Devil-03, radar contact, climb and
maintain five thousand, expect twenty minutes
holding at NAADA intersection for arriving and
departing traffic."
  The delay made sense--in fact, he was hoping
for it. Air Traffic Control had shut down all
traffic in and out of Atlantic City
International for thirty minutes so the New Jersey
Air National Guard could do this memorial, so it was
only fair that all the civilian traffic be
allowed to depart. "Roger, A-City," Vincenti
radioed back.
  "Devil-03 cancel I.f.r, requesting
radar flight following, destination Atlantic City
International via the Beltway tour, overfly if
able."
  "Roger, com03, remain this squawk and
frequency, maintain VFRIEND routes and altitudes
on the Beltway tour, I've got your request for
an overfly clearance."
  "com03, roger."
  It was far more restrictive now than when Vincenti
flew F-4Es out of Atlantic City
Airport a million years ago, but it's still a
pretty good ride, even at dusk, he thought--that
is, if the lights are on. He knew that exterior
illumination of most of the historic buildings and
monuments of Washington, D.c had been turned
off during the Cazaux terrorist emergency; no
announcement had been made, but rumor had it that the
President was going to order the National Park
Service to lift this restriction. It was
pretty lucky for him to be flying at all, let
alone as part of the Air National Guard unit's
memorial flight.
  Few guys want to fly Missing Man formations
--they believe it tempts Fate to fly close
formation in a high-performance bird in tribute to a
fellow pilot that .. . well, erred. Crashing and
burning in combat is one thing--getting excited and
accidentally blowing away an identified civilian
plane, and then committing suicide, was not cool.
  Everyone was sorry for Humphrey and his family,
but no one wanted to get too close to his bad
jujus. That's the way fighter jocks are.
  Of course, the Learjet shoot-down and
Humphrey's subsequent crash was not being called
a suicide or a screw-up, at least not by the
Air Force or the White House. Along with the
usual "the investigation is under way, I can't comment
on that," Hardcastle and Vincenti had explained about
how they broke the law, stopping short of saying they
deserved to get shot. A few veiled hints about
mechanical or electrical failure on the
F-16 because of the constant flying during the emergency,
some more hints about incorrect "switchology," mixed
with more comments like "if it had been Cazaux,
Atlantic City International would have been a
smoking hole otherwise." The press needed
massaging.
  More than most military men, Hardcastle--once
the leader of one of the most controversial paramilitary
organizations in American history, the
Hammerheads--understood that it was important not
to tell the press the facts, but to meter information bit
by bit, letting them form their own conclusions that, not too
coincidentally, were the ones you wanted them to have. It
didn't always work, but it was an efficient way to go.
  Humphrey was a victim of circumstance.
Yes, he screwed up.
  Military jets did not have cockpit voice
recorders or flight data recorders, so everything
was speculative until the final accident board's
report. Hardcastle often used familiar "goofs"
to explain failures in multimillion-dollar
military hardware: like causing an accident while
using a cellular phone in busy rush-hour
traffic.
  Humphrey had wanted to film the Learjet with his
gun camera during the intercept; he saw the
floodlight hit his leader's cockpit canopy,
saw him go out of control temporarily,
assumed that it was an attack, and launched a
missile. Under the emergency situation, such a
response was understandable. Of course, Hardcastle
explained, the deaths of the "Whispers" TV crew were
unfortunate, but it was probably avoidable--it
wouldn't have happened if the TV and Learjet crews
had been following the law and not out for a scoop. For
once it looked like blame was going to be placed on
the right party.
  By being up in Atlantic City instead of in
Washington, Vincenti was really just postponing the
inevitable: the intensive debriefing that judge Lam
Wilkes was giving Hardcastle and Harley right now
in Washington. Vincenti's turn was next. These
all-day, half-the-night sessions were nine-tenths
retribution and punishment and one-tenth information.
Wilkes was claiming that there were tons of evidence
to make everyone, including the President of the
United States, believe the body of the
motorcycle rider shot by the V-22 crew was
Henri Cazaux. The gun camera videotape from
the third V-22 of one of the two riders that
escaped was inconclusive. It was a thermal
image, almost useless for trying to identify someone.
But in Vincenti's opinion, any one of the
two that got away could have been Henri Cazaux.
  Wilkes and the rest of the justice Department
disagreed. To Also Vincent i, it was all just
educated guesses and assumptions--and politics,
of course. The more this air defense emergency went
on, the more uneasy it made the public. The
President needed this emergency over with soonest.
  Vincenti admired Harley for standing up
to Wilkes and most of the rest of the FBI. She was
definitely someone he wanted to get to know better.
He still wasn't exactly clear what her
relationship to former Vice President Kevin
Martindale really was, but Vincenti never liked
to take a backseat when it came to the pursuit of
women. He could take on Martindale any day of the
week. That aside, he wished Harley would at least
take some pride in knowing that Cazaux's
organization was busted up, his sources of funds
cut off and confiscated, his butt being chased closer
and closer every hour. Vincenti hoped Cazaux would
dive back under whatever rock he crawled out
from-Harley didn't believe he would.
  But the U.s. Marshals and the FBI were hot on
Cazaux's organization's heels, so if
Cazaux's wasn't one of the
bullet-riddled bodies she pulled from the mansion in
New Jersey, he was as good as captured anyway.
  Cambridge-Dorchester Airport, Maryland
That Same Time The little airport on Choptank
Bay in south-central Maryland was a busy and
favorite destination for fishermen from all over the
northeast United States, but at dusk it was as
dark and as quiet as the countryside around it. The
Patuxent River Naval Air Station was just
thirty miles southwest, where the U.s. Navy
trains all of its test pilots and conducts tests
of new and unusual aircraft--it was the Navy
equivalent of the Air Force's Edwards Air
Force Base--and the area just south of the little airport was
often filled with Navy jets dog-fighting or
practicing aerobatics or unusual flight
maneuvers. But promptly at nine P.m at the
very latest, the Navyjets went home. No one
dared disturb the peaceful little Chesapeake Bay
resort town in summertime unless you had a lot of
political or financial pull ..
  .
  .. . or unless you were an international terrorist,
and you didn't give a damn.
  Inside a hangar rented for this mission,
Gregory Townsend checked the attachment points
of the devices under the wings of the single-engine Cessna
172. He had slung one B.l.u-93
fuel-air explosive canister under each wing, just
outboard of the wing strut. It was a simple two-lug
attachment, connected to a mechanical-pyrotechnic
squib that used small explosive charges to pull
the lugs out of the attachment points and let the bombs
go. The charges were bigger than what was needed and would
probably punch a hole in the Cessna's thin
aluminum wing, but that didn't matter as long as the
bombs were able to free-fall properly. As the
bombs fell, a simple cable would pull an arming
pin out of the canister. Three seconds later the
canister would disperse the explosive vapor, and two
seconds after that three baseball-sized bomblets in
the tail cone of the canister would detonate in the
center of the vapor cloud, creating an explosion
equivalent to ten thousand pounds of TNT. The
fuel-air explosive blast would destroy or
damage almost any structure within a halfccmile.
  Once the canisters were properly attached and
checked, Townsend and two of his helpers threw
tarps over the wings to hide the canisters and towed the
aircraft south down the parking ramp and
onto the parallel taxiway to a runup pad at the
end of runway 34, using a rented pickup truck
and a nylon tow strap.
  Cambridge-Dorchester Airport had a lot
of airplanes parked there, but there was no fixed-base
operator to service planes, so it was not unusual
to see private autos towing them. There were a few
onlookers outside the Runway Restaurant at
the entrance to the little airport, the usual assortment
of people that hung around airports day or night, but when
they saw the airplane with the tarps over it, they
assumed it was being fixed, so few paid it any more
attention--onlookers came to see takeoffs and
landings, not engine runups or fuel tanks being
drained or scrubbed out. By the time Townsend and his
soldiers reached the runup pad, they were away from
most of the lights and the spectators.
  Townsend towed the Cessna onto runway 34,
then stepped into the cockpit and started its engine. His
soldiers meanwhile moved the truck behind the plane,
attached the tow cable to the rear tie-down bracket
and the other end to the truck's rear bumper, and pulled
the nylon tow-strap tight so it held the plane in
place.
  Inside the cockpit, it took only
fifteen seconds for the Global Positioning
System satellite navigation unit to lock on
to enough satellites for precision use. He checked
the navigation data in the set.
  There were only three waypoints in the flight
plan--an initial takeoff point about two miles
off the departure end of the runway, a level-off
point over Chesapeake Bay, and a destination:
38-eccomiag
  North, West, elevation twelve feet mean
sea level, the geographical coordinates of the
Oval Office in the White House, Washington,
D.c.
  programmed to the nearest six feet. Townsend
checked that the GPS set was exchanging information with the
Cessna's autopilot, then activated the
system. The GPS immediately inserted the first
altitude into the system, which was one thousand feet, and
its initial vertical velocity of three hundred
feet per minute. The Cessna's horizontal
stabilizers moved leading-edge down slightly,
ready to execute the autopilot's commands.
Townsend then stepped out of the cockpit and motioned
to his soldiers to get ready for launch. He began
to push in the throttle control for takeoff
power and .. .
  The Cessna's one VHF radio suddenly
crackled to life--Townsend didn't even realize
he had it on: "Cambridge UNICOM,
Cambridge UNICOM, Sene field at two
thousand five hulldred, landing information please, go
ahead."
  Before Townsend could respond, someone else on the
airport radioed back, "Seneca-43 Poppa,
Cambridge UNICOM, landillg runway
three-four, winds three-one-zero at five,
altimeter two-ninerniner-eight, no observed
traffic. Airport is closed right now, parking
available but no fuel or service available,
over."
  "Shit, "Townsend swore, pulling the throttle
on the Cessna back to idle until he decided
what to do. "What in bloody hell is he doing
here?"
  In the past few days, as his men monitored
activity at the airport, there had not been one
takeoff or landing after nine P.m not one.
  Their whole mission was in jeopardy, and he hadn't
even launched it yet!
  As if to answer his question, Townsend
heard, "Hey, d, this is Paul," the Seneca
pilot replied. "Yeah, it's just me. I gassed
up at Cape May this time--their gas is down
thirteen cents from last week.
  I had dinner out at Wildwood, too--that's why
I'm late. Hope the condo association doesn't
give me too much grief: I'll try to keep the
noise down."
  Townsend grabbed the microphone and, trying to tone
down his British accent as much as possible,
radioed, "Cambridge traffic, this is
Cessna-125-Bravo. I'm doing a little engine
and brake maintenance at the end of runway 34.
I'll be done in about five minutes."
  "Hey, Cessna-125But, are you running
engines out there?" the guy on the ground asked. "You
know you ain't allowed to run engines out here after eight
P.m. County ordinance."
  "This is very important," Townsend said.
"I'll be done in a minute."
  "You the one that got towed out there with the tarps on your
wings, com125But?" the guy asked. "The
homeowners' association listens in on UNICOM.
They'll probably call the sheriff and complain.
I'd pack it in for the night if I was you.
Don't dump any gas out of your sumps onto the
dirt, either--county gets pissed off about that too."
  "Kiss my bloody ass," Townsend said. He
unplugged the microphone, then shoved in the throttle
again, locked it tightly, closed the pilot's side
door, and motioned for his helper to remove the tarp on
the right wing .. .
  .. . and, sure enough, by the time Townsend had
removed the tarp on the left wing and gone back to the
pickup truck, blinking red-and-blue lights could be
seen back by the main part of the airport--a sheriff's
patrol car. Also, by that time, the twin-engine Seneca
was downwind, just a few minutes from landing. As the
soldiers got their suppressed MP5 submachine
guns ready, Townsend released the pelican
clamp on the tail of the Cessna, and the plane shot
down the runway.
  The Cessna didn't look like it was going to make
it. It pitched onto its left wheel as it
accelerated, it skittered over to the left side of'
the runway precariously close to the VASI
lights, and the left wingtip dipped so low that
Townsend thought it was going to flip over and spin out.
But just as he thought it was going to hit the dirt edge of the
runway, it lifted off into the night sky,
its wings leveling off as it gracefully climbed and
proceeded on course. The GPS flight plan
coordinates must've been off slightly, and the
plane had immediately tried to correct itself. luckily
it had not run out of runway first.
  The sheriff's patrol car looked as if it were
going to drive down a taxiway and perhaps block the
runway. It shined its floodlight at the plane,
as if trying to read the registration number. "He's
going to see those FAES under the wings, Mr.
Townsend," one of the soldiers reminded him.
  "Well, let's give the constable something else
to think about, shall we?" Townsend suggested. He
pointed to the Seneca, which was just turning final for landing.
As the patrol car backed up to get back onto the
main taxiway, the second soldier took cover
behind the pickup truck, out of sight. As the Seneca
came in over the approach end of' the runway,
flaps extended and engines at near-idle power, the
soldier opened fire. He emptied one
thirty-two-round magazine on it, reloaded, and
fired again.
  Nine-millimeter bullets raked across the left
side of the plane, one bullet grazing the pilot's
head and knocking him unconscious.
  Most of the bullets chewed into the left
propeller, breaking off huge pieces and throwing them
in all directions. Unbalanced, the engine began
to violently shake out of control. The Seneca
skidded to the left, pirouetted around almost in a
complete circle, and crashed.
  It skidded over across the parallel taxiway just a
comfew feet from the patrol car, then flipped over and
tumbled end-over-end into the south park of the parking
ramp, destroying a half-dozen planes along the
way before bursting into flame with a spectacular
explosion.
  The only clear way around the wreckage was down
the runway, and that's where Townsend and his soldiers
sped away. The patrol car tried to pursue, but
had to turn back to help the survivors in any
way he could.
  There was no pursuit--it took the sheriffs
patrol and fire department fifteen minutes
to respond, and the call to find the men in the pickup was
drowned out by the call for ambulances and doctors.
  Townsend and his men went north across the
Cambridge Bridge to the town of Easton,
picked up their Cessna-210 escape plane at
Newnam Airport, and were already flying
outside the state to safety less than thirty
minutes after the crash.
  Over Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis,
Maryland That Same Time vincenti was flying west
into the beautiful yellow, then orange, then red
sunset, still killing time until his scheduled landing
time.
  Northern and central Maryland and Chesapeake
Bay were dark except for the occasional farms and
rural subdivisions and the white dots of vessels'
running lights on the Bay, but soon the lights of
Baltimore and Washington could be seen, and they were
spectacular. The city of Aberdeen was to the right, with the
famous Aberdeen Army Weapons Proving Grounds
nearby. The big splash of light to the right was
Baltimore, and off the nose was Washington and the
virginia suburbs.
  He was headed right for the Annapolis-Chesapeake
Bay Bridge.
  vincenti started a descent to fifteen hundred
feet, only a thousand feet above the surrounding
terrain and a thousand feet under the Class B
airspace around Washington. It was a bit
dangerous flying into such congested airspace at
night, but flying was always a bit dangerous,
and any chance he got to enjoy it, he took. He was
still legal, taking advantage of all available
assets to keep separated from other planes, and he
was talking to air traffic control. The airspace
structure around DC and Baltimore forced VFRIEND
(visual Flight Rules) pilots either very high,
above ten thousand feet, or very low. But he was still
hoping for a friendly controller and a lot of luck to get
a really good look at the capital area.
  Of course, the reason he was allowed to be up here
at all was because the Justice and Transportation
Departments had recommended they do away with the air
defense emergency, a move that puzzled and
infuriated Vincenti. They had dismantled all the
flight restrictions, fighter coverage, and
Patriot missile protection in record time.
The President wanted things back to normal so he
could begin campaigning and tell everyone he had a
handle on the situation, and the so-called Executive
Committee on Terrorism okayed it.
  Vincenti overflew the three-and-a-half
mile-long Annapolis Chesapeake Bay
Bridge, skirted south around the U.s. Naval
Academy and the city of Annapolis, then turned
westbound toward Rockville.
  Vincenti Reed Hospital, the Mormon
Temple, ablaze in lights, and Bethesda Naval
Hospital. After passing about five miles north
of Bethesda, he heard, "Devil-03, are you
familiar with Special Routes 1 and 4, sir?"
  "Affirmative, Devil-03."
  "Devil-03, clear to Atlantic City
International Airport via present position
direct Cabin john intersection, Special
Route 1, Hams Point, Special Route
4, Nottingham VOR, direct, at two thousand
feet, do not overfly the observatory, the
Capitol, or Arlington National Cemetery,
keep your speed above two hundred knots,
report passing the Wilson Bridge."
  "com03, copy all, thank you." Vincenti
pulled back power and used override to lower two
notches of flaps, then thanked his lucky stars.
  Special Routes 1 and 4 are helicopter
routes that generally follow the Potomac. It was going
to be a quick but very spectacular tour.
  And it was spectacular. Starting at the Taylor
Naval Research laboratory, he cruised over
the Potomac south, with the entire expanse of
Washington and the Virginia suburbs
spread out before him in blazing glory. Vincenti saw
the U.s. Naval Observatory, Georgetown
University, Teddy Roosevelt Island, and then
the Capitol came into view on the left. The
memorials, monuments, and historic building
White House, but almost every building and monument
along The Mall was clearly and beautifully
visible, all the way to the Capitol itself. It felt
as if he could reach out and touch the Washington
Monument.
  He saw everything--the lights surrounding the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Reflecting
Pools, the Jefferson Memorial .. . it was
simply spectacular.
  He cruised east of Arlington National
Cemetery, and he could make out the Iwojima
Memorial and could even see the lone dot of light
that marked Kennedy's grovesite--just follow the
Memorial Bridge west ad the bright-yellow glow
of the Eternal Flame could be seen through the trees.
The Pentagon was plainly visible, a definite
five-sided outline against the lights of Pentagon
City. There was a helicopter landing on the
Pentagon helipad, Vincenti noticed, and he
wondered who was on board that helicopter and
hoped every-thing was quiet down there at the Puzzle
Palace.
  V E n 349 Aboard an Air Force
E-3Can AWACS Radar Plane Over
Eastern Pennsylvania The mission crew commander
aboard the Airborne Warning and Control System
radar plane, Major Scott Milford,
diligently continued to scan all five of the vital
sectors assigned to him--Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington,
D.c.--but he always came back to check out
Executive One Foxtrot.
  The modified Boeing 747, Air Force
designation VC-25A, commonly referred to as
Air Force One (but actually only called that when
the President of the United States was on board;
its call sign tonight was
Executive-One-Foxtrot, meaning that a member
of the President's family or some other very
high-ranking White House official was on
board), had been assigned a standard FAA air
traffic control transponder code, and everything
appeared to be normal. It was flying Jet Route
77, an often-used high-altitude corridor
used by flights from New England
to transition routes into the Philadelphia and
Baltimore areas. Usually the VC-25A was
cleared direct airport-to-airport, even if
it would bust through dense or restricted airspace, but
since the President was not on board, the crew was
apparently taking it easy and following published
flight routes to avoid totally messing up the air
traffic control situation all over the eastern
seaboard. The White House had learned from the Los
Angeles haircut incident, when the President
tied up air traffic at Los Angeles
International Airport for an hour by having Air
Force One block a taxiway while he was getting
a $200 haircut from a famous Hollywood
stylist, how sensitive the public was to the Chief
Executive stomping on common people while usirlg the
privileges of the office.
  The senior director on Milford's crew,
Captain Maureen Tate, turned and saw her
MC scowling into his radar scope. "Still bugged about
that VC-25 flight, sir?" she asked with a trace
of amusement in her eyes.
  "It's not the VC, it's the whole White House
policy jerking us around," Milford complained. "We
set up this whole complex air defense
system, and we get blamed when it fails, but when the
President wants to go on the campaign trail,
he dismantles the whole thing overnight.
  Now the White House is taking one of its
heavies right through our airspace, and we didn't
hear word one from anybody until twenty minutes
ago."
  "That's FAA'S fault, not the White House's
fault," Tate said.
  "We checked--they got the flight plan and the
Alert Notification.
  The Northeast Air Defense Sector
scrambled those two F-16's from Otis, too, and
they got a visual--it's a VC-25 all right."
It was standard procedure for Air Force One to get
a military fighter escort anytime it was in or
near hostile airspace, and these days, with Cazaux
on the loose, the airspace over the United
States was definitely considered hostile. But the
fighters' standard operating procedure was not to come
closer than three miles--close enough for a big
plane like a 747--and there was to be no escort after
sundown unless requested, so the fighters from the little
base on Cape Cod had gone home shortly after
the intercept. They probably got some
dynamite pictures.
  "I guess I'm bugged because usually we hear from
Air Combat Command or the 89th before they launch a
VC-25," Milford said. It was not standard or
required procedure, but during most special
operations and especially during an emergency situation
such as this, the Support Missions Operations Center
(s.m.o.c) of the 89th Air Wing, the Air
Force unit that flew the V.i.p jets from
Andrews Air Force Base, usually notifies
Air Combat Command and the Airborne Warning and
Control Squadrons that they were going to fly a
SAM (special Air Mission) through their area.
It was a simple "heads-up" that was encouraged
to expedite V.i.p
  traffic. Milford saw Tate's little amused
grin, and added, "And I'm bugged I didn't get
my invitation to the President's barbecue, either."
  "Situation normal, all fucked up," Tate
offered. "Want to call and raise some hell with
Andrews? I can contact the S.m.o.c."
Milford hesitated for a moment, not wanting to bug the
VC'S crew unnecessarily, but Tate took his
hesitation to mean yes. "Comm, this is the SD,
get the 89th S.m.o.c on button
four for me, okay?"
  "Copy," the communications officer responded.
A second later he responded, "S.m.o.c
on button four, SD. Call sign
"Midnight."
  his
  "Thanks."
  "Hey, who's that?" Milford asked. He had
flipped over to the Washington, D.c sector
radar display, where a large electronic arrow was
pointing at a low-flying, fast-moving radar target
flying right through the middle of D.c just a few miles
from the Capitol.
  "Jesus, who is t"...Who gave him clearance
to fly down there?"
  "Washington Approach has him, sir," Tate
reported after checking with the Comm section. "It's an
F-16 from Atlantic City, Devil
Zero-Three.
  Looks like he's on a Beltway tour."
  "Who gave him that?"
  "Washington Approach cleared him, sir,"
Tate responded.
  "National Tower is talking with him too. He's
VFRIEND."
  "I don't believe it, I just don't believe
it," Milford said angrily.
  "Two days ago we were ready to blow planes like
that out of the sky twenty, thirty miles away--now
we're letting them fly practically up to the front
door of the White House. And he's not even under a
proper flight plan! What are we doing up here
if A.t.c keeps on clearing guys to cruise
around anywhere they want? Are we supposed to be able
to stop this guy if he turns out to be a terrorist?"
  Milford switched his comm panel to Washington
Approach's direct phone line. The reply
came: "Washington Approach, Pooled."
  "Mr. Pooled, this is Major Milford,
aboard Leather Niner-Zero, the radar plane
assigned to your sector," Milford responded.
  "You've got a Devil-03 flying VFRIEND through
the center of National's Class B airspace--
I'd like him out of there as soon as possible."
  "Any particular reason, Major?"
  "Any particular reason .. . his Sir, we're
in the middle of an air defense emerenv!" Milford
shouted, trying to keep his composure on the landline.
"The FAA may have taken down the special flight
restrictions and approach funnels, but
we're still responsible for stopping possible terrorist
aircraft from entering Class B airspace.
  It really complicates our job having
unauthorized VFRIEND traffic flying through the middle
of one of the most vital airspaces in the country.
  Is that good enough for you, Mr. Pooled, or do I
need to talk with the TRACON supervisor?"
  "All right, all right, Major, I get the
point," the controller responded, clearly
exasperated at the threat but not wanting to make
waves. "How about we give him present position
direct Nottingham direct Atlantic City
International, and no more Beltway tours unless we
coordinate with you first?"
  "That sounds fine, Mr. Pooled, thank you,"
Milford said.
  "Leather-90 out." He punched off the phone
line, stripped off his headset, and wearily rubbed his
eyes and face. "Man, what is it with these
controllers?" he murmured. "It seems like every one
of them believes it's not going to happen to them, so they
treat everything like situation-normal. I'm sick and
tired of FAA controllers giving these pilots
anything they ask for, and then us getting blamed when the
pilot turns out to be a terrorist .. .
Look, there's another VFRIEND flight, busting the
Class B airspace." Milford pointed at a
new target just marked as UNKNOWN by the
Surveillance section. It was a slow moving target
flying northwest toward Washington Executive
Field or Potomac Airport, traveling
less than two miles per minute--a light
plane doing some sightseeing. "We ought to blow that
guy away just as a warning."
  "Executive-One-Foxtrot's been cleared
to descend," Tate reported.
  "He's twenty miles northeast of Pottstown
VOR."
  "He's going to have to get his tail down if he
wants to make RONNY intersection by eight
thousand," one of the weapons controllers behind Tate
remarked as he watched the VC-25 make its
descent. RONNY inter Base, was the usual
turnpoint for V.i.p planes landing at Andrews
--it gave the pilots a nice long straight-in
approach, with little traffic and few turns to disturb
the passengers.
  "Good thing the President's not on board,"
another we said.
  "I heard the Steel Magnolia
pitches a fit and tries to shit-can the whole flight
crew if her ears do so much as pop while she's in
Air Force One."
  "She's got bigger things on her mind these days
.. . like how to keep her and the President from being
indicted."
  Everyone chuckled.
  "There he goes," the first weapons controller
reported, monitoring
Executive-One-Foxtrot's data block and
mentally calculating the descent rate by watching the
altitude readout. "He's doing at least fifteen
hundred feet a minute in the descent. I think
heads are going to roll tonight."
  "Just everybody settle down and monitor the
transponder changeover up here," Tate said.
Before passing through ten thousand feet, Air Force
V.i.p aircraft like
Executive-One-Foxtrot switched their
transponders to a discrete code, usually 2222,
used only in the terminal area to alert controllers so
they can give the plane expedited service. When the
changeover occurred, the target usually disappeared
off the radar screen for about twelve seconds
until the new code was picked up by the
radar computers--if the controllers weren't ready for the
changeover, they got very frantic and sometimes pushed
the panic button.
  Milford went back and scanned his other four
vital sectors.
  Everything seemed to be running smoothly. Air
traffic had not returned to normal by any means, but
in the past few days travel at night had
virtually disappeared, and now it was making a comeback.
  Fewer restrictions on flight routing, more
controller discretion, and less reliance on published
arrival and departure procedures really helped
to clear things up. That newcomer, the slow-moving
VFRIEND flight that had originated somewhere in eastern
Maryland, was now over Nottingham VOR, still headed
northwest--its course would take it south of Andrews
Air Force Base, but it was definitely on its
way to busting the Class B airspace. That
idiot deserved to get his license pulled, Milford
thought.
  "Any ID on that VFRIEND flight out there,
AS?" Milford asked the Airborne
Surveillance section.
  "Still checking, MC."
  Jesus, Milford thought, what an
asshole. The air defense emergency had not been
officially canceled, although the FAA did announce that
flight corridors into the nation's busiest
airports anymore. It was also not hard to hide
all of the long-range Patriot missile sites
being taken down all over the country.
  "MC, no I.f.f changeover on that
Executive-One-Foxtrot flight."
  Milford immediately flipped back to the Washington,
D.c Class B airspace radar display and
zoomed his presentation in, putting the VC-25A
on the top of the scope and Andrews Air Force
Base, the plane's destination, on the bottom. His
heart immediately started to beat a bit faster.
Executive-One-Foxtrot was at RONNY
intersection, inbound on the I.l.s approach
to runway one-eight left, passing through eight thousand
feet--and still no transponder code changeover.
  The crews flying those V.i.p jets never
made mistakes like that, never.
  The next question was how to notify the crew of their
omission.
  Although it was certainly not required that the
VC-25 crews change their transponder codes
or accept any expedited service, it was
generally not a good idea for any of the President's
jets to be delayed in the air, especially when the
President was on the road. But blabbing it on an
open-frequency was probably not a politic
idea, either.
  Milford flipped his radio panel over to the
89th Air Wing's Special Mission Operations
Center, the ones that were in constant contact with all of
their V.i.p planes: "Midnight, this is
Leather-90 on S.m.o.c common, over."
  "Leather-90, this is 89th Wing S.m.o.c,
stand by." There was a lengthy pause, probably so
the senior controller at Andrews could look up in his
call-sign book to see who "Leather" was. Then:
"Go ahead, com90."
  "I'm tracking your SAM-2800,
Executive-One-Foxtrot, fifty-two miles
north of A.d.w inbound. Can you ask him to change
over his I.f.f?
  Over."
  "Say again, com90?"
  "I repeat, I am tracking
Executive-One-Foxtrot inbound to A.d.w,
and he has not changed over his I.f.f to terminal
procedure codes. Can you notify him
to change his transponder code? Over."
  There was another slight pause, probably so the
senior controller could ask the VC-25 crew if
they were squawking the right code and to change it immediately
if they had forgotten. Milford watched his radar
display, expecting the code to change at any moment
..
  .
  but it did not. "Ah .. . Leather-90, sir,
we can't verify the location of our SAM flights
to you on this channel. You'll have to contact us on a
secure landline or secure datalink. Over."
  "What the hell is this guy talking about?"
Milford muttered.
  "The whole friggin' world knows that this plane's up
there." On the radio, he said, "Midnight,
I've got a valid military flight plan for
SAM-2800 and an FAA ALNOT on
Executive-One-Foxtrot, I.f.r from
Manchester, New Hampshire, to Andrews. He's
less than fifty miles north of Andrews inbound
for landing. He's been airborne for well over an
hour. I think it's a little late to play
hide-and-seek games with this one. All I want
is to have him change over his I.f.f.
Over."
  After another interminable pause that was about to drive
Milford nuts and had now gotten the attention of the
entire AWACS crew, the S.m.o.c
controller came back: "Leather-90, I've been
directed to tell you by the senior controller here that there
is no SAMBLEBHJJ or
Executive-One-Foxtrot inbound for landing at
Andrews.
  All of our assets are accounted for, and none are
inbound to Ar drews at this time. You have a faker on
your hands."
  Milford felt the blood drain out of his face, and
his stomach muscles tensed so tightly that he felt
as if he were going to throw up.
  "Shit, shit, shit, "he cursed loudly. On
the radio, he shouted, "Midnight, are you sure?"
  "I can't tell you on this channel where the
VC-25'S are, Leather," the S.m.o.c
controller said, "but I can tell you they're not inbound
to Andrews. All of our other assets are nowhere
near A.d.w. Closest one departed a
half-hour ago, destination Langley."
  "Damn it, I can't believe this," Milford said.
Tate and the other weapon controllers were
waiting for their instructions--he had to act now .. .
"Comm, this is the MC, contact Washington
Approach and Washington Center, advise them
we're declaring an air defense emergency for the
Baltimore-Washington Class B airspace.
I need the airspace cleared out and instructions
issued to that 747 to stay out of Class B
airspace. Surveillance, MC, mark radar
target P045allyas "unknown."
  Maureen, do we have anybody suited up? Do
we have a chance to get this guy?"
  "Yes, sir," Tate responded immediately.
"Two F-16's--tactical birds, not
interceptors--on ready five alert at
Andrews."
  "Scramble them," Milford ordered.
  "Yes, sir," Tate acknowledged. She had her
finger on the scramsle button as soon as she
heard there was something wrong with
  Executive-One-Foxtrot. On
aircraft-wide intercom, Tate announced,
"All stations, all stations, active air scramble
Andrews, unknown target P045ally designate
as "Bandit-was .. . MC, Alpha-Whiskey
One-One and One-Two acknowledging the
klaxon; Weapons One, interceptors coming up to you
on button two."
  "Who else we got, Maureen?" Milford
asked.
  "Next-closest units we have are F-16
A.d.f interceptors at Atlantic City and
tactical F-15's at Langley," Tate
responded. "ADFS at Atlantic City are
on ready five alert, but their ETE is at least
ten minutes at zone 5. The F-15's at
Langley can get there in five minutes, but they're
not on ready five alert."
  "Call Langley and tell them to get anything
they can airborne," Milford said. "Put
A-City on engines-running cockpit alert at
the end of the runway in case Bandit-1 tries
to bug out or if the fighters at Andrews are bent.
Get a tanker from Dover or Mcguire
airborne and put him over Nottingham VOR for
refueling support--all the out-oftowners are going
to need gas if they arrive over DC on full
afterburner."
  "What's the order for Alpha-Whiskey flight,
sir?" Tate asked.
  Milford checked his radar scope. The
now-unknown 747 was only forty miles out; at his
airspeed, traveling six to seven miles per
minute, he would be over the Capitol in five
minutes. "If Bandit-1
  turns away and does not enter Class B
airspace, the order is to intercept, ID, and
shadow," Milford said. "If Bandit-1 enters
Class B airspace, the order is to engage and
destroy from maximum range.
  Comm, get the National Military Command Center
senior controller on button four."
  Milford then reached up to his primary radio
channels and selected the common channel linking the
fifteen Hawk missile sites and the twenty Stinger
man-portable shoulder-fired missile platoons
assigned to Washington-Dulles,
Washington-National, Andrews Air Force Base,
Baltimore International, and the Capitol
district, and said, "All Leather units, this is
Leather-90, air defense emergency for Washington
Dulles, National, and Baltimore
Tri-Cities Class B airspace, radar
ID P045ally is now classified 'unknown,"
target designate "Bandit-1," stand by for
engagement, repeat, stand by for engagemet
For the moment, the slow-moving VFRIEND flight was
forgotten .. .
  Andrews Air Force Base That Same Time
"Andrews Tower, Alpha-Whiskey-11 flight,
active air scramble, taxi and takeoff
northwest."
  "Alpha-Whiskey-11 flight, Andrews
Tower, taxi runway three-six right, wind
one-seven-zero at five, altimeter
three-zero-zero-one, expect immediate takeoff
clearance crossing the hold line, intersection
Bravo takeoff approved, seven thousand five
hundred feet remaining."
  It took considerably less than five minutes
for the two F-1ca crews from the 121/ Fighter
Squadron "Guardians," District of
Columbia Air National Guard, to run to their
jets, start engines, and begin to taxi.
  No matter what someone at the Department of
Justice said, they knew they were the last line of
defense for the nation's capital. Not only did the
Guardians refuse to revert back to normal air
defense operations, but they kept themselves in advanced
states of readiness in order to cut down on
response times. All idle-time crew
activities had been moved from the alert facility
to the aircraft shelters, so crews were no more than
six ladder steps from their cockpits, and runway
36 Right had been designated the "alert
runway," so it was always clear and unused except for
absolute emergencies.
  By the time the echoes of the three long klaxon
blasts were gone, immediately the roar of two Pratt and
Whitney F100-P-200 turbofan engines
replaced them.
  Both planes--not A.d.f (air Defense
Fighter) F-16's, but standard battlefield
combat models--carried four AIM-9Like
Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles, ammunition
for the 20-millimeter cannon, and one centerline
fuel tank. They reached the hold line in less
than a minute, performing last-second
flight-control checks and takeoff checklist items
on the roll. "AW flight, clear for takeoff to the
northwest unrestricted, contact approach,"
Andrews Tower radioed.
  "AW flight, clear for takeoff, go button
three."
  "Two."
  For safety's sake at night, the
fighters performed a standard intrail takeoff instead
of a formation takeoff. The leader turned onto the
runway, not bothering to set his brakes but plugging in
the afterburner as soon as he was aligned with the runway
centerline.
  The wingman started counting to himself when he saw his
leader's fifth-stage afterburner light, and although he
was supposed to wait ten seconds, he started his
takeoff roll on eight. Smoothly he pushed his
throttle to military power, checked his gauges,
cracked the throttle to afterburner range, watched the
nozzle swing, and checked the fuel flow and exhaust
pressure ratio gauges, pushed the throttle
smoothly to zone five, and .. .
  There was a bright flash of light ahead, like a
lightning strike on the horizon or a searchlight
sweeping down the runway. The pilot heard no
abort calls, either from his leader or the control tower,
so he continued his takeoff, clicking off nose-wheel
steering and shifting his attention from the gauges to the
runway when he passed decision speed.
  He then .. .
  There was another bright flash of light, and then the
pilot saw a ball of flames tumbling across the
runway, spinning to the left across the
infield, then back to the right across his path. He was
already past his decision speed--he was committed for the
takeoff because he no longer had enough pavement if he
tried to stop now. He still considered pulling the
throttle to IDLE, but his training said no, you'll
never stop, take it in the air, continue, continue ..
.
  The second F-16 plowed directly into the
fireball that was his lead F-16. He thought he
had made it through safely, but his engine had ingested enough
burning metal and debris to shell it out in
seconds.
  The pilot tried for a split second to avoid the
fireball by turning left toward the other runway,
but when he saw the FIRE light, saw his
altitude as less than a hundred feet above
ground and sinking rapidly, he did not hesitate
to pull the ejection handle.
  "Shit the bed, we got both those motherfuckers!"
one of Cazaux's soldiers shouted gleefully.
  "Damn straight," his partner responded. They were
in a hiding place between two maintenance hangars on
the west side of the western parallel runway, in
clear view of both runways and especially the
alert fighter ramp. They wore standard
military fatigues and combat boots, except
both wore no fatigue shirts--that was common during
after-duty hours in the summer. After nightfall, they
had successfully planted a series of
radio-activated claymore mines along both
runways, which they activated when they heard the
klaxon and were tripped when the hot engines of a
plane were detected by infrared sensors. "Now
let's get the hell out of here. We got thirty
seconds to get to the rendezvous point or Ysidro
will go without us." The terrorists activated switches
on the radio detonators, which would set off small
explosives in the devices several minutes later
or if they were disturbed so investigators wouldn't be
able to use them as evidence or as clues to their
whereabouts.
  They tried to leave their hiding place on the
street side near a dark parking lot, but the
explosion on the runway had attracted a lot of
attention faster than they anticipated, and they had
to wait for several security police cars to whiz
past. But as they crouched in the shadows waiting for the
cars to pass, there was a sharp bang! right behind them,
followed by the sputtering and sizzling of burning wire
and circuitry. One of the self-destruct
devices in the mine detonators had gone off
early--and it had attracted the attention of a
security police patrol on the ramp side of the
hangars. The blue-and-white patrol car skidded
to a stop, and the security police officer saw the
smoking and burning box and shined a car-mounted
floodlight in between the hangars, immediately impaling the
two men hiding on the other side in the powerful beam.
  "You two between the hangars!" the SP shouted on the
car's loudspeaker. "Security police! Kneel
down with your hands on your head, nowff"...The two men
ran off, together at first and then in diverging
directions.
  As they bolted from their hiding spot, another
security police cruiser passing by saw them
running and heard the other officer's alert on the
radio, hit his brakes, and stepped out of the car.
He shouted a perfunctory "Halt! Security
police canine unit! Stop!" but he was already
opening up the right rear passenger door of his
cruiser. He shouted a few instructions to his
German shepherd partner, pointing out one of the fleeing
suspects until the dog barked that he had the
suspect in sight, and then commanded the dog to pursue.
  Spurred on by the wail of sirens all
around him, the first terrorist ran north on Arnold
Avenue as fast as he ever recalled running in his
life. The fire trucks from the base fire station
at Arnold Avenue and D Street were rolling,
heading for the flight line, and for a moment the terrorist
thought he could loose himself in the confusion of vehicles
if he could just make it to D Street. Beyond the
fire station was the base exchange, commissary, and
theater, with plenty of places to hide, cars to steal,
hostages to capture.
  But the chase did not last long. Trained to be
perfectly silent throughout the chase, the terrorist
didn't hear the animal, not even a growl, until
he felt the dog's teeth sink into his upper-left
calf muscle. The terrorist screamed and went
down, rolling across the ground with the dog's incisors still
buried in his leg. As he tried to rise, the dog
released the man's leg and went for the right wrist, the
main appendage a K-9 patrol dog is
trained to clamp down on, and began pulling in any
direction possible, trying to keep the suspect
off-balance until his human partner arrived. Teeth
struck bone several times, and dog and man went down
together. The dog was a dynamo, never staying still, but
twisting in several directions, shaking his
head as if trying to rip the suspect's arm free from
his torso.
  But the terrorist was left-handed. He drew a
9-millimeter Browning automatic, and, before the
dog spotted the gun and went for the other wrist, put
it up to the big furry body and pulled the trigger.
The one-hundred-pound bundle of teeth and muscle
blew apart in a cloud of blood and hair, still trying
to keep hold of his suspect until life drained
out of his body--even so, the terrorist had to use the
muzzle of his Browning to pry the animal's teeth out
of his mangled right arm so he could .. .
  Headlights, squealing tires, a furious,
high-pitched voice shouting, "Freeze! Don't
move or you're dead!" It was too late. He was
already dizzy from the exertion and the loss of blood--there
was no resistance possible. Capture was not an
option. If the cops didn't kill him, Cazaux
would. Failure was inexcusable; capture
automatically meant betrayal, punishable by death.
He would rather have the cops do it quick than watch Henri
Cazaux rip his beating heart out from his chest.
  The terrorist sat up so as to present as large a
target as possible, aimed his Browning at the
headlights, and fired. The security
police returned fire with an M-16 assault
rifle.
  He was not disappointed.
  Army Colonel Wes Slotter, commander of
108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade,
Fort Polk, Louisiana, was the overall commander of
ground air defense forces for the nation's capital.
From the Patriot Integrated Command Center van
at Andrews Air Force Base, he was in constant
contact with all of the Patriot, Hawk, Avenger,
and Stinger units in the Washington area, as well as
the E-3Can AWACS radar plane and the National
Military Command Center at the Pentagon, where the
joint Air Defense Commander was headquartered.
  Although his headquarters was at Fort Belvoir,
Virginia, like his mentor, General H. Norman
Schwarzkopf, he hated being stuck in his office with
his units deployed in the field--even if "in the
field" only meant The Mall or a golf
course on East Potomac Island Park--so he
was on his way to the integrated central command for all
of the ground air defense units when the air defense
alert came down.
  And as he trotted over to the control van, he also
had a perfect view of the crash of the two
F-16 fighter jets, less than a mile from where
he was standing.
  Slotter ran back to the control center van,
wedging his six-foot-two frame past the maintenance
technicians and over to the Patriot battalion
commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jim
Buckwall, who was seated at the communications
officer's station behind the battalion fire control
officer and battalion radar technician.
"Jesus, we just had two fighters crash on the
runway," Slotter said. "What do we got,
Jim?"
  "AWACS radioed an air defense emergency
about two minutes ago, sir," Buckwall
reported. "We're tracking a single heavy
airliner inbound toward D.c. from the north.
Apparently it made its way from New Hampshire
calling itself Executive-One-Foxtrot."
  "A V.i.p flight? No shit," Slotter
exclaimed. How that bastard made it all the way like
that was almost unbelievable. "First that, then they crash a
couple F-16's--the Air Force is dicking up
by the numbers."
  He wasn't one to dig on another branch of the
service, especially durin at any time,
but the prima donnas in the Air Force really
deserved it sometimes. "Let's try not to make any
mistakes ourselves.
  Everybody reporting in okay?"
  "Yes, sir," Buckwall said. "All
Avenger ground units deploying as per the ops
order. This I.c.c is in contact with all the
Hawk batteries except for Baltimore, but the
AWACS had full connectivity with them.
  We're checking our comm relays to find out what the
problem is."
  "That AWACS has full control of all ground
units, eh?"
  "Yes, sir," Buckwall said. "We launch
our missiles, but Leather90 tells us who and when
and how we attack. If we lose connectivity with
them we have full authority to launch, but as long as the
hookup is solid, Leather-90 has the red
button." Slotter didn't like that idea, either.
An Air Force guy with authority over a dozen
Hawk missile batteries and two dozen Avenger
units, and with full launch control over the
Patriots if they were still on-line--well, the idea
was unnatural.
  Slotter could tell that the maintenance
techs wanted to get inside to start checking over the
systems to regain contact with the Hawk units at
Baltimore-Washington International. There was no
room in the control van for an extra person,
especially a high-ranking extra person. "I'll
be enroute to the NMCC at the Pentagon,
Colonel," he said. "Notify me as soon as
possible on the secure line on the engagement
status."
  "Yes, sir," Buckwall responded.
  Slotter squeezed past the maintenance techs and
exited the hatch, nearly colliding with a soldier coming
up the steps toward the I.c.c.
  The soldier, wearing an ALICE harness and web
belt, had his Kevlar helmet strapped down tight
and pulled over his eyes, so Slotter couldn't
recognize him. It was unusual to see a soldier
in full combat gear up in the I.c.c--the
security guys usually stayed on the perimeter.
  "Excuse me, sir," the soldier said. "I've
got a message for the commander."
  "Battalion CO'S tied up right now,"
Slotter said. "I'm Colonel Slotter, the
brigade CO. Let's have it."
  "Yes, sir," the soldier said. His right
hand came up--but there was no message, only a
small submachine gun with a long silencer on it.
  Before Slotter could cry out a warning, he felt the
sharp, sledgehammer-like blows on his chest, then
nothing.
  Tomas Ysidro shoved the body off the rear
deck of the Patriot I.c.c, pushed open the
entry hatch, threw a tear gas grenade and two
hand grenades into the I.c.c, slammed the door
tight, and jumped off the truck. Seconds later,
the hatch opened and the tear gas grenade sailed out, but
it was too late. The other two high-explosive
grenades were never picked up, and the explosions
inside the steel box of the Patriot I.c.c
destroyed everything inside instantly.
  "Move it, move it!" Ysidro shouted to his
partners. He should have set the explosives on the
antenna array, but the array was still deployed and the
electrical power plant was still operational. He
unbuckled the last two grenades he carried,
pulled the safety pins, and ran toward the antenna
array truck when he heard, was Halt! Drop your
weapon! was Always playing cowboy, Ysidro thought.
You're in combat, you idiot Americans--why do you
insist on trying to order the enemy to halt?
  Ysidro threw the first grenade at the antenna
array, then wheeled around and rolled the second
grenade under the electrical power plant truck--
just as three Army security guards opened fire,
catching him in a murderous crossfire from their
M-16's. His shattered body hit the ground just a
few feet from where his partner lay, shot by another
security guard as he tried to plant the
remote-detonated mines around the antenna array and
electrical power plant.
  But the first grenade did the trick. Ysidro's
toss was perfect, bouncing off the back of the
"drive-in theater" array and landing right on the wave
guide horn on top of the unit. The explosion
ripped the entire array and wave guide assembly
off the top of the van. The second grenade rolled
all the way under the EPP, but the force of the explosion
toppled the vehicle on its left side, spilling
diesel fuel and starting a fire.
  Along The Mall That Same Moment When the
alert went out from Major Milford aboard the
E-3Can AWACS radar plane that Washington
was under attack, the air defense ground units that
had so very carefully been under wraps for the past several
days immediately deployed to their fire
positions.
  From First Street, east of the Capitol, to the
Lincoln Memorial, Avenger units rolled out
of their parking garages and took up positions on The
Mall, with one Avenger stationed every six thousand feet;
at the same time, Avenger units deployed
to positions around the approach ends of main runways
at Dulles, National, Andrews, and Baltimore
airports.
  Avenger was an HMMWV (high Mobility
Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, the Army's
new "Jeep" were truck with a rotating turret
installed on it that contained two four-round Stinger
missile launchers, a .50-caliber heavy
machine gun, a laser rangefinder, and a
telescopic infrared sensor.
  The gunner sat in a cab between the two Stinger
launchers and electronically spotted and attacked
airborne targets as far as three miles away.
A driverstloader and two security troops
completed the Avenger crew.
  "All Leather units, Bandit-1 bearing
zero-one-eight degrees magnetic, range
thirty miles and closing. All units stand by for
status poll." Sergeant First Class
Paul Lathrop pushed open the bulletproof
Lexan canopy of his Avenger FAAD (forward
letterea Air Defense) unit to get a little fresh
air into the cockpit, and stretched to try to smooth out
the kinks in his muscles. He was the unit gunner,
sitting in a tiny, narrow cockpit between two
four-round Stinger missile pods. The cab was not
made for anyone over six feet tall, nor
anyone with any hint of fat--the turret steering
column was right up against his chest, and his knees were
bent all the way up practically to the dashboard.
  But even worse than sitting in the hot, confined
cab was sitting in the cab when the vehicle was moving.
He was wearing no tanker's pads to protect himself,
so every bone in his body ached from being thrown around in the
bucking-bronco HMMWV.
  Lathrop's Avenger unit was stationed on the west
side of the Washington Monument, with an almost
unobstructed view of the sky in all directions--
except, of course, for the sky blocked out by the
monument.
  He could clearly see the front of the White
House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson
Memorial, and of course the Capitol itself.
  There was another Avenger unit east of the
Washington Monument, near the Capitol, with a
clear shot of most of the sky that Lathrop couldn't
see to the east; there were other units over at West
Potomac Park guarding south D.c Ft.
Mcnair, Arlington National Cemetery, and the
Pentagon, and east of the Capitol as well.
  You don't deploy units like Avenger in the
middle of The Mall in Washington, D.c and
expect not to get noticed, and almost as soon as they
rolled out of their hiding places near Union
Station, West Potomac Park, the Navy Bureau
of Medicine, and George Washington University,
a crowd had gathered to watch. D.c. Police and
Army security troops were trying to close off the
Mall and chase all the bystanders away, but on a
warm summer evening in D.c with the lights of the
monuments on for the first time in days, there were a lot of
folks out wandering around.
  The lights had not yet been turned off, and
Lathrop idly wondered who would have the switch to the
lights of Washington, D.c. Certainly not the
President--or the Steel Magnolia.
  It was then he noticed that the poll of the air
defense units had stopped. On interphone, he
said, "Mike, how do you hear?"
  "Loud and clear," Specialist Mike Reston
replied.
  "What happened to the poll?"
  "Dunno," Reston replied. Lathrop heard
a squeal in the radio as Reston deactivated the
squelch control. "Radio still works. Hang on."
  On the radio, Lathrop heard, "Control,
Leather-713, radio check . ..
  Control, com713, radio check."
  "com713, this is Leather-601, stand by." That was
from the lieutenant in charge of the four Hawk
missile sites stationed around D C based out at
East Potomac Island Park, south of the
Capitol, along the Potomac.
  "Control must've gone off the air," Reston
said.
  That got Lathrop worried. With a bandit only a
few minutes away, he needed radio contact with
someone with a long-range radar to spot targets for him
until the bandit got close enough. The passive
infrared sensor on the Avenger was good out to a range
of about five to eight miles, so long-range
spotting was crucial. The Patriot I.c.c
(integrated Command Center) stationed out at Andrews
provided radar coverage for the Hawk and
Avenger units--what a shitty time to have radio
problems.
  "All Leather-600 and com700 units, this is
Leather-601," the commander of the Hawk battalion
said on the command net. "I.c.c is down,
repeat, I.c.c is down, com601 is taking
operational control.
  Bandit-1 bearing zero-one-zero magnetic,
twenty-eight miles, status is batteries
released tight, repeat, status is batteries
released tight, all units--" And then that
transmission stopped.
  "What the fuck .. . ?"
  "Hey, guys .. . er, Leather-700 units,
this is com711, I see a fire over on East
Potomac Island Park," one of the crew members
on the Avenger at West Potomac Park
radioed. "I see .. . holy shit, man, I
see big explosions south across the Inlet, over on
East Potomac Island.
  I think the Hawk site just got wiped."
  "Say again, Winfield?" Lathrop radioed.
"You say you saw explosions?"
  When Lathrop released the mike button, the
gunner on Leather-711
  named Winfield was already reporting: "dis. . and I
see several guys headin" this way .. . shit,
man, shit, they're riring at me, all units ..
  .
  you motherfucker!"
  "Win, what the hell's going on?" But then
Lathrop looked to his left and saw two men
dressed in jogging shorts but carrying rather big
knapsacks or duffel bags running down the long
walkway to the west of the Washington Monument. He
rose out of his seat and shouted to his security guard,
"Hey, Kelly, watch those two guys to the west.
Don't let anyone near the unit! Some shit's
going down out there! We lost contact with Winfield in
com711."
  The Army guard named Kelly moved over to the
left rear corner of the Avenger unit and spotted the
two guys trying to casually jog over toward them.
Kelly shouted, "Hold it! Stop where you are! was
The joggers didn't stop. A D.c. Police
cruiser on Seventeenth Street spotted the
joggers and turned on its lights, trying to get them
to stop.
  The first one hesitated, jogging in place a bit
until the second guy caught up with him,
then they continued. The Police cruiser jumped the
curb and started down the walkway, issuing a warning
to stop on their PA system. The joggers kept on
coming. Kelly leveled his M-16
  and shouted, "I said, halt! Last warning!
Stop!"
  The joggers angled over away from the Washington
Monument, about fifty yards or so away from the
Avenger, near a small information kiosk .
  .
  . then suddenly stopped, both of them, and put their
duffel bags down.
  "What's the problem, man?" one of the joggers
shouted.
  "What's going on?"
  Kelly shouted, "Leave those bags on the ground
and raise your--" But he was interrupted by a
terrific explosion that rolled across The Mall. A
bright yellow fire was burning, somewhere near the
Capitol.
  "com712, you read me?" Lathrop radioed.
"Wood, man, answer up ..
  .
  com712, you read me? What's that fire .. . ?"
But Lathrop knew what it was--it was the
burning hulk of the Avenger stationed west of the
Capitol. Someone was picking off all the air
defense units around the Capital, one by one .. .
  .. . and now they were attacking here. The two
joggers had leaped behind the information kiosk, out of sight
of the Avenger crew--and suddenly a burst of
automatic gunfire erupted, sweeping across
Lathrop's Avenger. The D.c. Police car that
was speeding toward them slammed on its brakes, and
another burst of automatic gunfire sprayed it
with bullets. Kelly ran behind the Avenger and
returned fire with his M-16, chopping holes in
the fiberglass kiosk.
  The D.c. Police cruiser was getting chopped
up badly--they had some heavy firepower .. .
  Lathrop closed his canopy and swung his
turret westward toward the kiosk. Machine-gun
fire peppered the polycarbonate canopy, and
9-millim not penetrate. One of the joggers bolted
toward the police cruiser, firing on the run.
Lathrop tracked him with ease in his infrared
scanner window, flicked his arm switch to GUNS,
hit the ENASLE button on the left turret
control, and squeezed the trigger on the right turret
grip.
  From only about two hundred feet away, the
Avenger's .5-caliber heavy machine gun--
designed to blow fifty-thousand-pound aircraft out
of the sky a mile away--chopped the first jogger up
into several large chunks in less than a second.
Lathrop immediately swung the turret back around and
reacquired the kiosk, ready to blow the shit out of it
as well .. .
  .. . but the second jogger had pulled out a
LAWS (lightweight Antitank Weapon
System) rocket from his duffel bag, aimed and
fired, and from less than two hundred feet away
he could not miss.
  It seemed as if the rocket was headed straight
for the space between Lathrop's eyes. He felt an
incredible blast rock his eight-thousand pound vehicle
and saw a bright flash of light, and then he saw and
felt nothing .. .
  Hoover FBI Building That Same Time It was
the closest thing to an interrogation any of them had ever
been subjected to. Deborah Harley, Ian
Hardcastle, and the Deputy U.s. Marshal of the
United States, William Landers, along with
several Marshals Service agents and U.s.
Navy pilots had been questioned in the
Director's conference room for the past nine hours
on the CV-22 raid at Cazaux's estate in
Bedminster, and the attempted intercept of Harold
Lake and Ted Fell in Newburgh.
  They had been subjected to "tag-team" questioning
by a small army of investigators--asked to draw
detailed maps of their route of flight and movements
in the mansion once the attack was under way,
describe all of their communications routines, and
provide exhaustive records of everything concerning
the mission, from where they bought fuel for the PAVE
HAMMER tilt-rotor aircraft to a full list
of all the weapons used.
  Finally, Judge Lam Wilkes, the
Director of the FBI, came to visit the group.
While staffers and other witnesses had been shuffling in
and out all day retrieving records that the FBI
requested, Harley and Hardcastle had been there the
entire time, and they were stiff and tired as they got
to their feet when Wilkes entered the conference room.
"Good evening, Agent Harley, Admiral
Hardcastle," she greeted them. "I appreciate
your assisting the Bureau in preparing our report to the
justice Department and the White House. I'm told
you've been here since early this afternoon."
  "You know damn well we've been here all day,"
Hardcastle snapped angrily. He had ditched his
coat and tie long ago and had changed into a
short-sleeve shirt and comfortable loafers; Harley
was in a business suit but had removed her jacket
--she still looked as calm and fresh as she did when
she began the marathon "debriefing" session.
  "Something wrong, Admiral?" Wilkes asked
sweetly.
  : "We should have been allowed to submit our
reports on the incident first before all this began,"
Hardcastle said. "I think it would've been more
efficient to take our report and then fill in the
details later. We're essentially duplicating
our reports and being kept here like prisoners. We
should--"
  "Admiral, I've been FBI Director for
three years, and I've been involved in thousands of
criminal and interagency investigations in my thirty
years of law enforcement," Wilkes interrupted
crisply, "so I think I know a thing or two about
how to conduct an investigation and how to take a
report.
  Frankly, judging by your actions in the raid on
the Bedminster estate, I question whether you have
any idea on : proper or legal law-enforcement
actions.
  Do us both a favor, Admiral, and let the
Bureau do its job--for a change." She surveyed
the room, noticing empty drink cups and sandwich
boxes in the trash cans. "I see you're being
taken care of here. This shouldn't take too much
longer. I'm sure you agree that it's better if
we just get this whole thing over with."
  "Judge Wilkes, do you still think the body
recovered at the mansion was Henri Cazaux?"
Harley asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
  Wilkes narrowed her eyes in irritation at the
question. "I'm sorry," Wilkes replied icily,
"but I can't talk about an ongoing investigation with you,
Agent Harley."
  "She's as much a part of the investigation as you are,
Judge Wilkes," Hardcastle announced.
"Perhaps much more so."
  "Just because you flagrantly disregarded Justice
Department policy and procedures and shoot up a
nest of terrorists doesn't give you a
need-to-know," Wilkes hissed. "If we weren't
talking about Henri Cazaux, I'd see to it that you
had your stars yanked, you and Deputy
U.s. Marshal Landers. You don't seem to care
or realize that you interfered with the biggest Bureau
investigation since the World Trade Center bombing.
However, I will say that the cannon you used to kill
him and the eleven other persons inside the place
really did a good job in obscuring their features and
making identification more difficult--"
  "So this whole interrogation is your way of getting
back at us, right, Judge Wilkes?" Landers
asked, refusing to be cowed by the Director of the
FBI or anyone else. "You don't have to lock us
up-just "debrief" us for the next six weeks
until the press is done raking us over the coals
for the "brutal" attack on the estate and the
"incompetent" way we handled Harold Lake's
capture."
  "Deputy Landers, all these little problems you've
encountered have nothing to do with me--you caused them all, you
and Admiral Hardcastle's damn-the-torpedoes,
full-speed-ahead and attack-dog solutions to every
problem that crops up," Wilkes said. "You
interfered with an FBI investigation, and I've got
to clean up your mess.
  Congress is going to question us next week on what
happened, and I'm going to be ready, and
frankly, if you're inconvenienced by this, I don't
really care. Now, I've asked for your cooperation.
If you refuse to give it, I'll have no choice but
to schedule a deposition and compel you to attend."
  "And make sure that such a summons is made quite
public," Hardcastle interjected.
  "All such summonses are a matter of public
record, Admiral," Wilkes said, not bothering
to hide her contempt. "Now, if you'll excuse me
.
  .." Just then her pager went off, and she went over
to a nearby office phone on the conference room table.
"Director Wilkes .. . a what"...When .. . his
I'll be right down .. . no, I don't want
to deploy BLACK To .. . I said, I'll be
right down." She slammed the phone down and hurried
to the door.
  Both Hardcastle and Harley were on their feet--
by the look on Wilkes' face, they both knew
something terrible was wrong. "What is it, Judge?"
Hardcastle asked.
  "Nothing .. . I'll brief you later."
  "Receiving a recommendation from your command center
to deploy BLACKTIGER is not exactly
"nothingea"...Judge," Deputy Chief
U.s. Marshal Landers pointed out.
  "What's BLACK TIGER? was Hardcastle
asked.
  "That's none of your concern" Wilkes warned.
  "BLACK TIGER is the classified code name
for the joint federal and military team designed
to protect the capital," Harley said
to Hardcastle. "In peacetime, it's mostly
to protect against rioters and civil unrest. The
Attorney General is the commander; senior
representatives are from the FBI, the U.s.
Marshals Service--Bill here is the Marshals"
rep--the Secret Service, and the two-star commanding
general of the Military District of Washington,
plus other military reps. There was an attack
somewhere in the capital--wasn't there, Judge
Wilkes?"
  "Deputy Landers, you're with me. You two,
I'll talk to later," she said, and hurried off.
Landers gave Harley a friendly squeeze on the arm
and followed Wilkes to the underground FBI
Emergency Operations Command Center.
  Suddenly, outside the open conference room
windows, they saw a flash of light, like a huge
flashbulb going off, followed seconds
later by a loud rumble that was like a short, sharp crash
of thunder.
  They all went to the window. The flash had come from the
south, in the direction of The Mall, but they could see
nothing.
  Hardcastle was reaching for the phone to call his
assistant Marc Sheehan: "That wasn't thunder--it
reminded me of a bomb attack in San
Salvador I witnessed once," he told
Harley. "Something's going on out there near The
Mall."
  "Forget the phone call--let's get out of here,"
Harley said.
  "Talk on the way. We'll take my car."
  Aboard the E-3Can AWACS Radar
Plane Leather-90
  "MC, Comm, we just lost contact with the Hawk
unit at East Potomac Park."
  Milford was dumbfounded. The fake
Executive-One-Foxtrot was less than thirty
miles away from the Capitol, and at the exact
point where the medium-range air defense units
would have engaged, they went off the air. First the
fighters launching from Andrews were destroyed, then the
Integrated Command Center at Andrews that
had overall control of the Hawk and Avenger units
around the city, now the close-in Hawk radar
system.
  The Avenger units--if there were still any Avenger
units down there--were virtually blind. The gunners
on the Avengers had I.f.f
  (identification Friend or Foe) interrogators,
so they could pick out any aircraft that was not
squawking air traffic control codes, but the
tracking sensors on the Avengers had limited
range. Even if they spotted the fake
Executive-One at the absolute maximum
range, they would have only a few seconds
to attack before the plane got within range. The Stinger
missile was designed to attack targets flying
less than two hundred knots airspeed--the
fake Executive-One was flying almost twice that
speed.
  "Status of the runway at Andrews?"
  "Closed, sir," Tate reported. "There are
only two other fighters assigned there; neither are
ready to fly."
  "Status of the Patriot batteries? Any of
them operational?"
  "The Patriot site at Dulles was
destroyed by commandos," the Senior Director
responded. "The site at Fort Belvoir is not
damaged, but it was decommissioned this morning and was
ready to roadmarch in the morning. It won't be able
to respond."
  Milford checked the radar display with an almost
feverish feeling of helplessness and dread. He had
nothing to respond with, nothing. A single F-1sc
fighter carrying one Sparrow radar-guided missile
had launched only moments ago from Langley Air
Force Base, near Hampton, Virginia, but
even at fuel-sucking afterburner power it would take
about ten minutes to fly within missile range of the
fake Executive-One. Two fighters had
launched from Atlantic City, but they would not be in
range for almost fifteen minutes.
  Not only that, but now they had a new concern. That
VFRIEND slow moving plane from Maryland was right on the
outskirts of Andrews Air Force Base's
Class B airspace, about sixteen miles
southeast of the capital.
  It had not announced itself on any emergency
frequency, was not squawking any transponder
codes, and it had not deviated from course one bit
to try to avoid any restricted
airspace. It was dead on course--for the capital.
It had been marked now as "Bandit-2," but like the
fake Executive-One, they had no way of
stopping it.
  "Comm, MC, get me the White House,
Capitol, and Pentagon communications centers,
Flash priority alert," Milford said. "If you
need to get their damned attention, tell them the
capital is under attack."
  "MC, Comm, National Command Authority joint
Emergency Communications Network, call sign
"Palisade," button four," the communications
officer said just seconds later. "No problem at
all convincing them something's going on."
  "Go ahead, Leather-90, this is Palisade."
  "Palisade, this is Milford, Mission Force
Commander leather northeast sector, we have an
unidentified aircraft inbound, about four minutes
north .. . make that three minutes north of the
capital."
  Milford found himself hyperventilating, and he
consciously slowed his breathing and got his voice back
under control. "I have declared an air defense
emergency for the Washington and Baltimore Class
B airspace. Be advised, all of my
air defense systems have come under simultaneous
terrorist attack in the past few minutes, and I
have no aircraft or ground-based systems left
to respond. I recommend the Leadership be
notified and they evacuate to underground shelters. I
am also tracking a slow-moving target sixteen
miles southeast of the capital at fifteen hundred
feet, groundspeed one hundred knots, ETA to the
capital about twelve minutes. We have not been able
to contact either aircraft; they are hostile, repeat,
hostile aircraft. How copy?"
  "Leather, I copy all, stand by."
  The response was almost instantaneous: "MC,
SD, Marine Two and two other helicopters
airborne from Anacostia," Tate reported.
  "Three aircraft launching from Quantico."
The Anacostia Naval Station, just a few miles
south of the capital, is a satellite base for
HMX-1, the Marine Corps unit that flies
V.i.p-configured helicopters from Quantico
Marine Corps Air Facility, including Marine
One and Marine Two, which carry the President and
Vice President, to reduce their response time
to the capital. Obviously, the senior director
at the National Command Authority Joint
Emergency Network command post was trained not to take
any warning or threat lightly.
  The helicopters would touch down on the south lawn
of the White House to take the President or
Vice President; other helicopters would land on
the east side of the Capitol to take any members
of Congress or any justices of the Supreme
Court to safety, if it was necessary.
  Others would land near the FBI Building,
Justice Department, State Department, and the
Pentagon, all to ensure that the most senior
members of government, if they were still in the capital,
would be safe.
  "Give those choppers full priority, SD,"
Milford said as he studied the sudden flurry of
aircraft over the capital and the surrounding area.
  "Get their tactical frequency from
"Palisade," or use GUARD to vector them
around Bandit-1 when they're ready to--" Then he
stopped, and his jaw dropped open in surprise.
  Washington Approach and National Tower was
clearing out the airspace around the city--inbound air
traffic was stacking up as high as forty thousand feet
in orbit areas all around the Class B
airspace-and Milford was mentally dismissing
the outbound flights ..
  . all but one .. . "My God .. . Jesus,
Maureen--Devil-03.
  He's an F-16, isn't he?"
  "Devil .. ." The senior director had
completely dismissed the flight from her mental
catalog of aircraft around D.c. after the mission
commander kicked him out of the airspace, but now it was coming
back .
  .. She punched up his call sign and expanded her
scope until she saw the blinking datablock:
"God .. . Weapons One, you still got
Devil-03? He's three miles west of
Nottingham."
  "I got him," the weapons controller said.
  "Take Devil-03 on--no, disregard, take
him on GUARD channel, don't bother with a
discrete channel. Maybe whoever is flying
Bandit-1 will hear what's going on and get the
hint."
  "I got him, I got him," First Lieutenant
Ed Flynn, flying the Weapons One control station,
repeated excitedly. He switched his radio
to 121.5, the GUARD international emergency
channel, and radioed, "Devil-03, this
is Leather Control 011 GUARD, how do you
read?" To himself, Flynn and everyone else on that
AWACS radar plane were praying that the pilot of
Devil-03 would respond .. .
  .. . and vincenti was praying that someone would call
him, because air traffic control or anyone at
Andrews Air Force Base command post was not taking
his radio calls. He had been trying frantically
to contact someone, anyone, and offer his assistance ever
since he heard the air defense emergency declared.
"Leather Control, this is Devil-03
  on GUARD, I read you loud and clear, how
me?"
  "Devil, I need you to turn left to a heading of
two-niner-five and descend and maintain three thousand
feet, right now, acknowledge.
  was vincenti had racked his F-l 6 A.d.f
into a tight, seven-G turn and was on the new
heading in three seconds. He began feeding in
throttle until he was at full military power.
"I'm on your heading, Leather," vincenti
reported. "Is this a vector to the bandit?"
  "That's affirmative," the controller replied,
trying to keep his breathing and voice as normal as he
possibly could. "Your bandit is one o'clock,
forty miles low. I need your best speed to the
intercept, Devil, what can you give me?"
  Checking his fuel gauge, vincenti made a quick
mental calculation, then turned the throttle past the
detent and clicked in zone 3 afterburner.
  The airspeed gauge slowly eased upward, the
Mach meter hovering very close to 1.0, the speed of
sound. "That's it, Leather," vincenti said.
  "Are we going over to tactical frequency?"
  "Negative, Devil," another, slightly
older voice cut in. "No time for that now--besides,
I want our bandit to hear all this. Devil, we
believe your target is a Boeing 747. It may
be painted to resemble a VC-25 or some other
V.i.p aircraft, but it is not, I repeat, it
is not a VC-25. This has been verified
by numerous independent sources. It is not carrying
any VIPS or any government officials--it is
believed to be carrying hostiles. We are tracking
a second aircraft south of the capital,
slow-moving, tracking toward the capital. Whoever
they are, they have not responded to our radio calls
to turn away from Class B airspace. Both
aircraft are definitely hostile. I want you
to keep both aircraft away from the entire
area, but especially Prohibited Areas P-56,
Washington-National and Dulles airports. Your
priority is Bandit-1 west to the north; we have
other interceptors inbound that might be able to catch the
guy to the south. Take Bandit-1 west or north
if you can do a visual intercept on them; take
Bandit-2 south.
  Are you familiar with the prohibited areas,
Devil?"
  "Affirmative," vincenti responded.
P-5ca and comB was prohibited airspace
over The Mall and the U.s. Naval
Observatory.
  vincenti checked his weapons status, which was a
joke. He carried no weapons or ammunition, just
videotape for the gun camera.
  At least I'll get some great pictures of the
chase, vincenti thought wryly. Of course, maybe
the bandit is really radio-out, or maybe a
passenger is flying the thing and can't answer, or
maybe he'll turn away when he sees me or
he'll give it all up and follow me out of the area.
  Just then, a large yellow MASTER CAUTION
light illuminated on vincenti's eyebrow panel,
and he heard a female voice on
interphone saying, "BINGO .. . BINGO .. .
BINGO." It was a reminder that he had enough fuel
to get back to Atlantic city. Plenty of
airfields out here, he thought. No way I'm
turning back. But it was a bad sign. At
afterburner power, he was burning fuel at fifty
thousand pounds per hour--he was going to be running on
fumes very soon.
  "Devil, your bandit is one o'clock, thirty
miles low."
  There were lots of radar targets out there--dozens of
planes were stacked up over Washington-National and
Dulles--but only one at that azimuth and range.
vincenti locked the radar blip up, using the
F-16 A.d.f's I.f.f interrogator
to see if the target was transmitting any air
traffic control codes or signals--nothing.
  This had better not be another fucking hot dog
TV show crew, vincenti said to himself.
  "Devil-03, judy," he reported to the
AWACS controller.
  The fire control computer put the bandit at two
thousand feet, just a few hundred feet above ground.
His groundspeed was 360 knots and his closure
speed was 250 knots. He was going
to intercept the bandit only about ten miles north of the
capital, so he nudged the throttle to zone 5
afterburner. The airspeed indicator went over
1.0.
  There was no sudden sound as he broke the speed of
sound, no jolt, no vibration, nothing except the
ground was going by real damned fast.
  "One o'clock, twenty-eight miles."
  "That's your bandit, Devil," the controller said.
  "Control, Devil, say my engagement
instructions again for this target," Vincenti radioed.
He thought he'd try a little gamesmanship here--
hopefully the crew of that plane would get spooked
and turn around. "Your last instructions to me were
to keep this bandit clear of P-56 and
Washington-National Airport. No matter what
I hear on the radio, even if they claim to be
an authorized TV crew on assignment, am I
clear to engage at will? Over."
  "That voice sounds familiar," another voice
came on the frequency.
  "Do we know each other, Devil? Have we met?"
  The voice sent chills down Vincenti's spine.
It's him, he thought.
  Shit--it's Cazaux. It was the same
voice he heard over Sacramento before Linda was
killed. It's Cazax. He's on board that rake
Executive7Just Jon-foxtrot. Vincenti
keyed the mike button: "Cazaux, this is
Lieutenant Colonel--this is Also Vincenti, the
partner of the pilot you killed over Sacramento.
Remember me?"
  "Who can ever doubt the existence of the Fates now,
I ask you?" Cazaux asked with laughter in his
voice. "There are indeed mysterious forces at work,
Colonel Vincenti, that have put us back together
once again. But aren't you the one that is supposed to be
keeping the skies safe from men like myself, dear
Colonel?"
  Vincenti was going to reply, but the MASTER
CAUTION light snapped on again, and he saw a
FUEL indication in his heads-up display. This time the
caution light said AFT FUEL LOW, meaning that
the fuel quantity in the aft reservoir tank had
dropped below four hundred pounds. It would run dry
in just a few moments if he stayed in afterburner
power. When the FWD FUEL LOW light came
on, he had about two minutes of fuel remaining before
they flamed out--perhaps only about twenty or thirty
seconds in afterburner power. A normal
landing would be impossible if he stayed in afterburner
power.
  He ignored it and keyed the mike: "I'm not
going to warn you again, Cazaux. You will turn
westbound, lower your landing gear, and head west or
north, right now, or I'll blow you out of the fucking
sky.
  This time I won't hesitate. I've got
plenty of reasons to flame your ass, Cazaux.
Do it, or you die. That's my final warning."
  The answer was immediate: "Very well," Cazaux said
simply, and, to Vincenti's surprise, the 747
banked right and turned toward the west.
  "Now you have promised you won't fire on me."
Cazaux snickered.
  "I have your word, don't I, Colonel? We
are on an open frequency--there are probably
thousands of people listening to us.
  You promised not to harm me if I turned
away."
  "I promised," Vincenti said. He immediately
chopped the throttle back to 90-percent power to try
to conserve every pound of fuel possible.
  "But if you try to evade me or don't follow
my instructions, I won't hesitate
to open fire."
  "I assume your Leather Control has heard our
conversation as well?" Cazaux asked.
  "We're listening, Cazaux," the controller
replied. "You're within range of a Hawk missile
site right now. I suggest you keep going westbound."
  "Very well," Cazaux radioed back,
chuckling. "I will take my chances with your federal
court system. I understand your federal courts have no
death penalty, correct? Life in one of your fine
American prisons will suit me just fine."
  A few moments later, as Cazaux's plane was
about to fly over the Potomac just south of
Rockville, Maryland, Vincenti banked left and
joined on the tail of the massive 747. Sure
enough, the plane had been painted to look like Air
Force One, except the paint was peeling off in
several locations and the lettering was not perfect, although very
Air Force One.
  "Devil, Control, I show the bandit headed
westbound, targets have merged. Do you have him in
sight?"
  Before Vincenti realized he was talking on an
open frequency, he replied, "Affirmative,
Control, I enjoined on the bandit. His
landing gear is down. The aircraft is a 747,
resembling a VC-25.
  It--" Just then the 747 started a steep left
turn, the landing gear retracted, and the airliner began
to accelerate rapidly. "Cazaux, stop your
turn.
  Head westbound now."
  "Too bad, Colonel Vincenti," Cazaux
said firmly.
  "Too bad you were given a plane with no
weapons. You could have been a hero today."
  "I'm warning you, Cazaux, turn back or
I'll fire."
  "You have not been truthful with me, Colonel."
Cazaux snickered again.
  "I am the man who killed your Linda
McKenzie, the man who terrorized the world's
supposedly greatest nation, the one who destroyed your
fighters and rendered your entire air defense system
useless and inadequate. I am your nemesis,
Colonel Vincenti. If you had weapons,
Colonel, you would have not hesitated to attack. You
have obviously closed inside both missile and gun
range, and we are over open territory, with little
danger to innocents on the ground you would have
fired on me if you had the ability. You do not.
Nor do I expect any of the Hawk missiles
sites you lied about to engage.
  My men have taken care of all of them very
effectively."
  The 747 rolled out, now heading eastbound, and
Cazaux added, "And look, Colonel--with
typical government efficiency, your National Park
Service still has not turned out the lights in your
capital.
  We are perhaps twelve miles away, and I can
see your Capitol Building very clearly. It is
so simple--line up on the Iwo Jima
Memorial and the Washington Monument. How
convenient of you to provide me with such beautiful
landmarks. I was hoping to hit the White House, but
I'm afraid I won't see it in time. But I can
see the Capitol Building very clearly, up on that
hill by itself lit up so brightly, so that shall be my
target. Good night, Colonel. You did everything
you could. Your government certainly cannot fault you."
vincenti swore loudly in his oxygen mask and pushed
the throttle back up to military power, banking
hard to cut off the turn and stay close on the
747. But as soon as he moved the
throttles to the mil power detent, the MASTER
CAUTION light came on for the third time, this time with the
FWD FUEL LOW caution light on. At
military power, burning ten thousand pounds of fuel
per hour, vincenti had less than sixty seconds
of fuel left .
  ..
  He knew what had to be done--it was the only
option left to him now.
  Near The Mall That Same Time The radio in
Harley's car was already a jumble of confusion. She had
automatically pulled out of the FBI parking garage
onto E Street, heading west toward the
Treasury Department, but after pulling onto
Pennsylvania Avenue, passing the Hotel
Washington, she heard another radio report of
terrorists sighted near the Washington Monument, and
she turned south onto Fifteenth Street and roared
off in that direction, her little emergency light flashing
away atop the dashboard.
  "Why wouldn't they let us get our sidearms
back?" Hardcastle asked in between radio
reports.
  "Because the FBI is filled with paranoids,"
Harley said, "or else they were told not
to release them--that might be Judge Wilkes's
idea of throwing her authority around. Doesn't
matter--we don't need the popguns anyway.
There's a reason I wanted to take my car."
  Hardcastle had never considered his trusty Colt
.45 automatic a "popgun," and he hoped
Deborah had something better in mind.
  They raced down Fifteenth Street, across
Constitution Avenue, and found a plain sedan stopped
on the east walkway, about two hundred yards from the
Washington Monument. A chunky, gray-haired
black plainclothes or off-duty D.c.
Police officer with an "ass-duty spread" was
standing behind his sedan, pointing a .38 revolver toward
the monument and trying to raise someone on his
hopelessly jammed police radio. Harley
skidded to a stop, popped open her trunk, and
jumped out of the car, holding her gold Secret
Service badge up for him to see.
  "Secret Service. What do you got,
officer?"
  "Automatic gunfire from two perps near the
monument, hit a D.c.
  cruiser over there," he said, pointing to a stopped
D.c. Police cruiser just barely
visible on the other side of the Washington Monument.
He was a good three hundred yards away--
obviously the cop had no intention of getting any
closer with just a .38. Smart thinking.
  "Just blew up an Army missile jeep with a
damned bazooka."
  Harley met Hardcastle at the trunk of the
can-he was wisely reaching for the heavy, dark-blue
bulletproof vests he found. "You always carry two
vests in your trunk?" Hardcastle asked.
  "Sometimes I wear two vests, Ian," Harley
said. "I'm not proud, believe me." She flipped
down a flap on the front and back of the vests,
revealing the words TREASURY AGENT. She then
lifted the floor carpeting, unlocked a padlock,
lifted a large metal door covering her spare
tire well, and lifted out two short,
futuristic-looking bullpup rifles with green
plastic stocks that seemed to comprise the entire
body of the gun itself. "Steyour AUGS. Familiar
with them?"
  "Used them all the time in the Coast Guard and the
Hammerheads," Hardcastle said. He shoved two
30-round magazines into his pants pockets,
slammed one magazine home, charged the
weapon, and set it on SAFE. They hopped back
into the car and drove off toward the Washington
Monument.
  Over Arlington, virginia That Same Time The
747 was over Arlington now, skimming over the
trees and buildings. It looked as if it were going
to hit the apartment buildings north of the Iwojima
Memorial, but Vincenti knew they were not
Cazaux's target. The 747 now filled the
windscreen. They were almost at the memorial, yet
he couldn't see anything but the reflection of the lights
of Arlington and Washington off the mottled white
paint of the 747.
  "What are you doing, Colonel?" Cazaux
radioed. "Are you enjoying the view? I am."
  "The view I'm enjoying is the one with you crashing
into the ground and dying once and for all."
  "I don't think so, Colonel," Cazaux
radioed back.
  "Unfortunately for you, I am not on board the
747. But thank you for thinking of me."
  Vincenti's color drained. Cazaux isn't
on the 747? He hissed, "Cazaux, you're a
dead man, you don't know it yet, but you're dead.
  his
  "While you waste your breath on threats,
flyboy, I shall stroll down The Mall, watch my
747 crash into the Capitol Building, and then see
what other havoc I can raise in the ensuing
panic," Cazaux said.
  "Perhaps I'll take my remaining soldiers and
visit the White House.
  Ciao, Colonel."
  "Fuck you, Cazaux!" Vincenti raged on the
radio. He shoved his throttle to full afterburner
power to try to catch up with the 747-2 as he did, the
WARN symbol appeared in the heads-up display
almost immediately afterward, and a large red ENGINE warning
light illuminated on the eyebrow panel. He was
out of fuel and the F's engine had flamed out.
  Near the Washington Monument That Same Time
Just then, a man appeared from behind the Washington
Monument, about a hundred yards away--they could
see his outline against the floodlight surrounding the
monument.
  Harley immediately slid her car right, with the left
side of the car facing the man, when suddenly a burst
of machine-gun fire sent a swarm of bullets in
their direction.
  Hardcastle had swung open his door as
soon as he saw the man, and he threw himself out of the
car even before Harley completely stopped it.
  He felt a hand on his leg as he was leaping out,
and he thought Deborah was right behind him. Hardcastle
took cover behind the right front wheel, leveled the
Steyour, flicked the safety to the upper five-dot
full-auto position, and fired a full
one-second burst in the terrorist's general
direction. "Deborah!" he yelled behind him.
  He could no longer see the terrorist--either he was
on the run or was on the ground. "Deborah, you
all right?"
  "Shit, no!" Harley yelled. Hardcastle
leaned his Steyour against the car beside him where he could get
to it easily and crawled around to the passenger-side
door. Deborah Harley was lying on the car seat,
the left side of her face and left arm bloody.
Her left arm looked like it was hit just below the
bulletproof vest, but it appeared to be only flying
glass that caused the facial injuries. "When
you're getting out, Admiral," Harley said in a
remarkably clear voice, still with a trace of humor
despite her injuries, "don't waste time.
I'll have to crawl over you next time."
  "You do that," Hardcastle said. "You got
a first aid kit anywhere in--"
  "Forget about me. I'm all right," Harley said.
"Where's that gunman who fired?"
  Hardcastle heard sounds of running. He reached
for his rifle-only to face a tall, fearsome-looking
warrior dressed in black, wearing a balaclava
facemask, a web harness filled with grenades and
weapons, standing less than fifteen feet away.
The man was carrying a small submachine gun with a
long suppressor. The warrior raised his SMG,
aimed .. .
  .. . then stopped, lowered it, and said in a
definite French accent, "Admiral Hardcastle,
I presume?" Hardcastle made a move for his
rifle, but the gunman fired a short burst into the
ground beside him.
  Hardcastle heard only faint cracks when the
gun fired, but he could feel the impact of the
bullets along the ground. The gunman then ran
over, grabbed the Steyour, tossed it aside, then
stood over Hardcastle, just a few feet away.
He was tall and powerful-looking, with an athletic
body that could not be hidden even by all the combat
hardware on his combat harness.
  "This officer is hurt," Hardcastle
tried. "Who the hell are you?"
  The gunman pulled off his balaclava hood,
revealing a narrow face and close-cropped hair.
"I am your old friend Henri, Admiral .. .
  Henri Ca7aux."
  Hardcastle's face registered shock, then pure
white-hot anger.
  He tried to jump to his feet and tackle
Cazaux. The terrorist merely kicked
Hardcastle aside with a sharp snapping kick to the
head, accomplishing the move quite easily.
  "This is perfect, Admiral, just perfect,"
Cazaux said. He peered into the car door, checking
Harley and taking away her rifle. He quickly
checked the glove compartment, removing a .30
automatic backup pistol.
  "She looks beautiful even with her wounds,"
Cazaux said. He turned back to Hardcastle and
said, "First I encounter my old friend and your
colleague Colonel vincenti, and now you."
  "Vincenti? his
  "He is out there," Cazaux said, waving toward the
Lincoln Memorial and the Iwojima Memorial
to the west, "trying to stop my 747 from crashing into the
Capitol.
  "Oh, yes, Admiral," Cazaux crooned.
"You and the young lady have wonderful seats for my final
spectacle. You will witness the destruction of the
Capitol as my 747 crashes into it, and then
witness the destruction of the White House when my
fuel-air explosives destroy it. Of course,
I think we might be a bit too close to the
explosion at the White House--they assure me
everything within a half-mile will be damaged or
destroyed by the explosion. If the Fates let you
live, then you probably deserve it.
Unfortunately, I won't have the opportunity
to see any of this--it is a poor soldier who stops
to admire the destruction he causes. Au
revoir, Admiral. I hope to--"
  "Freeze!
  FBI!" a voice behind them shouted. "Drop your
weapon!" Cazaux let the submachine gun
clatter to the ground.
  "Now raise your--" .
  Cazaux didn't hesitate--he ducked down
behind the car, drew a sidearm, and dragged
Hardcastle to his feet, holding the pistol to his
head. It was judge Lam Wilkes, drawing down
on Cazaux from about twenty yards away.
"Drop the gun, now!" she shouted.
  "My luck is running true to form tonight,"
Cazaux cackled.
  "It is none other than the beautiful FBI
Director, Lam Wilkes! I think you should
drop your gun, Madame Director, or I'll
blow the Admiral's brains out right now. Don't you
move in that car either, Treasury agent!" he shouted
as he noticed movement inside the car.
  "Bad move, Henri," Hardcastle said, his
voice weakened by the steel-like arm across his throat.
"The lady would probably give you a citation if you
pulled the trigger. Judge, meet Henri
Cazaux.
  Henri, FBI Director Wilkes." He
could see Wilkes' stunned expression even in the
semidarkness of the lights surrounding the Washington
Monument.
  "My extreme pleasure, madame," Cazaux
said gallantly.
  "Admiral, it was convenient of you to wear a
bulletproof vest tonight.
  Madame Director, I'll make you a
sporting proposition. If you don't lower your
weapon, I'll kill the Admiral and
I'll still escape.
  Toss your weapons away, give me a head
start, and the chase starts anew, on equal terms.
Agreed?"
  "It's not going to happen, Cazaux," Wilkes
said, her voice faltering from the strain, confusion, and
outright surprise. "No one is going to give up
their weapons his
  "Ah, your voice says otherwise, Madame
Director," Cazaux said.
  "You have faith in your agents, I assume.
Surely they can capture me in the nation's
capital? Now drop your gun. This is my final
warning."
  To Hardcastle's surprise, Wilkes let her
service revolver roll on her trigger finger,
barrel pointing upward. "Wilkes, don't do it."
  Hardcastle groaned. "He'll kill me
anyway."
  "Freeze! D.c. Police!" they heard.
  The plainclothes D.c. Police officer had
chugged his way over to the monument, drawing down on
Cazaux. Cazaux instinctively raised his
pistol toward him .. . and Hardcastle reached up and
grabbed his right wrist, shoving it upward. The
officer fired, but he was too far away and missed.
Cazaux shrugged out of Hardcastle's grasp with
ease and fired three shots at the officer, two
rounds hitting him in the chest. Wilkes dropped
to one knee, swinging her service revolver back
up.
  Cazaux aimed .. .
  .. . and they fired simultaneously.
  Three .45 caliber rounds hit Wilkes, one
in the shoulder and two in the chest; two .38 caliber
rounds hit Cazaux in the stomach and left shoulder.
Wilkes collapsed onto her back and was still.
  Cazaux stood there, a hand over the stomach wound,
but he was still standing. He swung his pistol down at
Hardcastle, but suddenly his knees gave way and
he went down on one knee. Realizing he was really
hurt, Cazaux stood up shakily, ignoring
Hardcastle, and started running south toward the
Sylvan Theater and the Tidal Basin. He started
to pick up amazing speed. Before Hardcastle could
react and reach for one of the Steyour rifles,
Cazaux had almost reached Independence Avenue and was
lost in the darkness.
  Hardcastle's first thought was to go after Cazaux, but
not with three wounded officers around him. The
D.c. Police officer was dead.
  Lam Wilkes was alive but hurt very badly.
"I was on the way to the White House .. . heard
the radio call .. . where .. .
  where's Cazaux?" she gasped.
  "He got away," Hardcastle said. He tried
to stuff a handkerchief into one of the wounds and tried
to compress the other with his bare hand--the bleeding was
serious.
  "Don't .. . don't let him get away,
Hardcastle, damn you .. ."
  "Lie steaJudge. Help is on the way,"
Hardcastle lied.
  "Violence .. . this violence is sickening,"
Wilkes gasped.
  "When will it end? When will it .. . ever .. . end
.. . ?"
  And her voice trailed off into a whisper, then
nothing.
  "Shit!" Hardcastle swore aloud. "You
bastard!" He turned to retrieve his Steyour
bullpup rifle, and found Harley on her feet,
headed toward him. "Deborah, stay down."
  "Is she dead?"
  "She's hurt badly. The cop is
dead," Hardcastle said. "I'm going after
Cazaux. Stay here and see if you can help
Wilkes."
  "No way.
  Where did he go? I'll call it in."
  "Call it in, but you're--" He turned and
looked toward the Lincoln Memorial as the loud
scream of an airliner got closer and closer.
"Oh, my God, there it is!" Hardcastle shouted,
pointing toward the Iwojima Memorial. "It's
headed this .. .jesus, Deborah, get down,
gel down!"
  Harley ran over, grabbed Wilkes by the arms,
and dragged her behind the Washington Monument to safety
.. .
  .. . just as all hell broke loose.
  Near the Iwo Jima Memorial That Same
Moment Just as the 747 was north of the Iwo Jima
Memorial and over the interstate, Vincenti closed
his eyes and flew his F-16 Fighting Falcon
into the right rear portion of the fuselage, between the wing
trailing edge and the forward edge of the horizontal
stabilizer.
  The impact sliced off most of the's rear
empennage, and it nosed over, then tumbled,
the crushed F-16 adding its own remaining jet
fuel vapors to the tremendous explosion over the
Theodore Roosevelt Bridge.
  The airliner impacted just east of the Rock
Creek Parkway, on the interchange west of the
Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery complex,
tumbling end-over-end in a tremendous flaming
fireball two hundred feet high. The bulk of the
burning wreckage missed the spraying burning
metal, fire, and destruction across the Reflecting
Pool, across the Kutz Bridge, and the Bureau of
Engraving and Printing Building on the east side
of the Tidal Basin, destroying everything in its path.
  With a terrific mushroom-shaped cloud of fire,
the Francis Case Bridge exploded when it was
hit by the wreckage, but it stopped the careening hulk
from tumbling any farther. Flying debris and burning
fuel spread out in a half-mile-wide,
two-mile-long fan, spraying buildings from the
Smithsonian Institution and the Energy Department
all the way to South Capitol Street with an
incredible firestorm.
  In less than two seconds, almost two square
miles of the District of Columbia was on fire.
  Near the Washington Monument That
Same Moment Hiding behind the square stone face of the
Washington Monument, their breathing rapid and
shallow, hands and legs shaking, eyes staring in
terror, Hardcastle and Harley tried to close their
eyes, then found they couldn't bear to not watch, and they
waited for the fires to engulf them.
  The crash was utterly devastating.
  Hardcastle caught a glimpse of the huge white
747 just to the right of the Iwo Jima Memorial. It
appeared to be landing except that it was moving at an
incredible speed, the engines shrieking louder than at
takeoff, the landing gear up. And, of course, there was
no runway in front of it, only the
three-mile-long Constitution Gardens and The
Mall.
  But then Hardcastle saw a blur, a streak of
light to the's left, then a brief puff of fire,
and suddenly the huge airliner simply dropped out
of the sky right before him, like a huge pelican diving
for a fish in the Potomac. The cloud of fire and
debris obscured all view in that direction, and
that's when Hardcastle dove for cover, holding
Harley close to him as if to shield her from the awful
concussion that he knew he had no power to stop. The
terrible sound of wrenching steel and
Capitol-sized flames hissing in the humid
night air moved across and seemingly over them at
tremendous speed: Hardcastle always remembered the
slow-motion TV shots of plane crashes, but of
course they always slowed the images down so you could
somehow savor or try to analyze the crash, and the
airliner had to be moving well over three or four
hundred miles an hour when it hit the ground. The
earth rumbled with the force of a hundred earthquakes; the
lights around the Washington Monument exploded as
if being shot out by machine-gun fire.
  The air felt hot and electrified, as if they
were standing in front of a steel smelter, and a sudden
windstorm sucked the air out of their lungs as a
huge mushroom-shaped blob of air was consumed in the
fire.
  But they didn't die.
  Hardcastle stayed put for what seemed like a long
time, and finally looked up when he heard a large
piece of debris fall close by His and
Harley's bodies were, surprisingly, still whole.
He crawled around the north side of the monument and
peeked westward.
  It was raining burning debris and slippery
moisture that Hardcastle knew was jet
fuel, not rain. The stricken 747 had somehow
careened across monuments, across the middle of the
Reflecting Pool, coming to rest in a massive
flaming pile beyond the Tidal Basin. The sky was
glowing far to the southeast with several fires, but
Hardcastle did not see the massive Dresden-like
firestorm he was expecting. By just a few hundred
feet, the 747 had miraculously missed most of the
important government buildings and monuments.
  "It's over," Hardcastle said to Harley, who
had gotten to her feet and followed him around the
Washington Monument to inspect the destruction.
  "I think Vincenti rammed it. I thought I saw
either a missile or an F-16 itself hit the 747
just before it cleared the Potomac."
  "My head is still ringing," Harley said. "I've
never heard or felt anything like that before in my
life." She walked around the monument, her eyes
tracing the destructive path of the stricken 747.
  "Didn't I see Cazaux running in that
direction?"
  "Yep," Hardcastle said proudly. "He was
all the way down to Independence Avenue. He ran
right into the path of that 747. Man, I hope he
got fried. What a great way for him to go
--cooked by his own weapon."
  "That would be the perfect definition of justice,"
Harley said.
  She trotted over to her car, retrieved a
first-aid kit from her well equipped trunk, and
began dressing Wilkes' wounds. The FBI
Director was not conscious, but most of the bleeding had
slowed to a manageable level. "I just wish he had
gotten it sooner." She looked back to the west and
spotted the Avenger air defense vehicle,
sitting on what looked like the scorched edge of the
fireball across the Constitutional Gardens.
"What's that? Is that one of the Army air defense
things?"
  "It's an Avenger Forward Area Air
Defense System," Hardcastle said.
  "Must've been one of Cazaux's targets. He
had to take out the ground air defense units to make
his air attacks work."
  "We better go see if anyone's in there."
  "I'll go--the fire might have destabilized the
missiles on board," Hardcastle said. "They
might have a radio on board."
  "You better call the Bureau and tell them
Wilkes is hurt badly."
  "She got a piece of Cazaux before she got
it," Hardcastle said.
  "She was going to play by the rules, even with the
Devil himself standing right in front of her." He
shook his head as he trotted toward the Avenger.
"Lam Wilkes saved my life. How am I ever
going to live that down?"
  Aboard the E-3Can AWACS Radar
Plane Leather-90 Milford saw the fast-moving
low-flying radar targets, the F-16 and the fake
Executive-One-Foxtrot, get closer and
closer, saw the targets merge . .. and then both
disappeared, right over the Potomac, just west of the
capital. "Oh, Jesus .. ."
  "Lost contact with Bandit-1 and Devil-03,"
the Senior Director, Maureen Tate,
reported. The entire AWACS crew was silent,
everyone realizing what had just happened--a terrorist
747 had just hit Washington, D.c.
  "Bandit .. . Bandit-2 now twelve miles
southeast of the capital," Maureen Tate
stammered, trying to force her brain back to the task
at hand. "Groundspeed ninety-three knots, in a
slow descent. ETA to the capital area, nine
minutes."
  "SD, Weapons-3, I need to bingo
Lima-Golf-31," the weapons controller
reported. Lima-Golf-31 was the F-15 out of
Langley that had tried to chase down the 747.
"He has less gas than he thought.
  He won't make it to the capital." The
F-15 had been in full afterburner power ever
since takeoff, and he probably didn't start with a
full load of fuel anyway. "Andrews is
closed, and National is a zoo right now, with planes
stacked up all over the place--I recommend
Navy-Patuxent River." Tate turned
to Milford, who nodded his agreement. That was their last
chance of stopping the new bandit.
  All they could do right now was wait for it to hit ..
.
  .. . no, no, there had to be something still out there.
He once had several dozen air defense units
operational in the D.c. area--it was inconceivable that
Cazaux or any army of terrorists could have gotten
them all in just a matter of minutes.
  Just one shot was all they needed to stop this last
threat .
  ..
  "Comm, MC, sweep all the
tactical channels and try to raise any of the
Leather air defense units," Milford ordered.
"Someone out there must still be operational. If possible,
try to get some of the Avenger units from the
Pentagon, Dulles, or National over to the
capital area to try to stop Bandit-2."
  "Any leather unit, any Leather unit, this is
Leather-90 Control," the communications technician
radioed. "If you hear me, come up on any
tactical frequency or on VHF 105.0.
Repeat, if you hear me, come up on any
tactical frequency. Over."
  Near the Washington Monument That Same Time
The entire front of the top turret of the Avenger was
crushed inwards and blackened, obviously by a hit from
a small but powerful antitank weapon. The front
of the HMMWV itself was still smoking from the fire in the
engine compartment, and the turret looked cockeyed, as
if shoved off its moorings. Hardcastle used a
fire extinguisher he found on the rear deck of the
Avenger to put out the last bit of fire in the front
so he could reach the driver and gunner. Both were dead.
  He found the third man in the Avenger crew
nearby, shot to death by machine-gun fire. Cazaux
was nothing if not a very efficient killer,
Hardcastle thought. "Dear God," Hardcastle said
half-aloud, "you may not want it, but I'd give
all of my remaining years for an assurance from you that
Cazaux is really--" Hardcastle started on the
grisly task of removing the bodies from the
Avenger. As he removed the driver's helmet,
he heard through the headphones, "Any Leather unit,
any Leather unit, this is Leather-90 Control.
If you hear me, come up on any tactical
frequency or on VHF 105.0. Repeat, if
you hear me, come up on any tactical
frequency. Over." Somebody was still calling, trying
to see if anyone was still alive. Hardcastle tried
to remember who "Leather" was, but it really didn't
matter. This Avenger unit was definitely dead.
  It wasn't going anywhere, and the turret and
sensors were cooked.
  "Unknown rider, unknown rider," another radio
in the Avenger blurted, "unidentified aircraft
on the Washington National one-two-five degree
radial, two miles, this is Leather Control on
GUARD, turn south immediately or you may be fired
upon without warning. You are in Washington National
Class B airspace and are approaching
prohibited airspace. Turn south
immediately and squawk 7700. Attention all
aircraft, stay outside Andrews or Washington
National ten DME, air defense emergency in
progress. I say again, unknown rider .. ."
  Holy shit! Hardcastle gasped.
  Cazaux's second terrorist aircraft!
  He had almost forgotten--Cazaux said he had a
second aircraft inbound to bomb the White House
with a fuel-air explosive.
  That "unknown rider" was it--and it was only a few
miles away.
  He donned the Avenger driver's thick
bulletproof Kevlar helmet, moved the
microphone toward his lips, and keyed the transmit
button: "Leather Control, this is .. . ah, this
is Admiral Ian Hardcastle, on board an
Avenger unit on the Mall. How do you read this
transmitter?"
  "Calling Leather Control, say again."
  "Leather Control, this is Admiral Hardcastle
on board one of the Army Avenger units on The
Mall. Can you read me?"
  "Person calling Leather Control, this is an
aviation emergency channel only, if you require
medical or police response, change
to VHF 121.5 or U.h.f 243.0, over."
  "Listen to me. Henri Cazaux is flying some
kind of aircraft toward Washington, D.c and
it's loaded with explosives. I'm on the ground
near one of your Avengers. Your crew here is dead.
I need to know how much time I have and if there's anything
I can do to help avert disaster. Over."
  "listen, sir, if you are at The Mall, stay
away from any military units you might encounter.
The authorities will be arresting or shooting any
looters. I advise you to get away from the area as
quickly as possible. If you are injured or your home
has been damaged, you should contact the proper
authorities imme--" The controller's voice
suddenly cut off, then another voice came on the
channel: "Is this Admiral Hardcastle, the
White House air defense adviser?"
  "Affirmative. I'm--" Suddenly
Hardcastle remembered back from his unit and
situation briefings who "Leather" was: "Is this the
senior director of the AWACS orbiting over
eastern Pennsylvania?"
  "This is Major Milford, the force mission
commander," Milford replied from Leather-90.
"Admiral, we're tracking an
unidentified aircraft about nine miles south of
you, about three hundred feet aboveground, groundspeed
about eighty-seven knots, heading right toward the
capital.
  What's your situation there? Over."
  "A 747 crashed just west of the Constitution
Gardens section of the capital, and it destroyed or
damaged everything from the Lincoln Memorial to the
Capital Yacht Club," Hardcastle said.
"We found an Avenger unit that was hit by an
antitank weapon just west of the Washington
Monument. The crew is dead, and the front of the
vehicle and the turret and gunner's cockpit are
badly damaged. That plane you're tracking belongs
to Henri Cazaux. He says he's got a
fuel-air explosive weapon on it and that he's
going to bomb the White House. Is there any way
to reactivate this unit, maybe by remote control?
  Over."
  "Affirmative," Milford said, stunned by what
he had just heard.
  "There should be a remote-control computer unit up
with the driver.
  You should find a spool of fiber-optic cable about
fifty yards long.
  You should be able to operate the unit with that."
  The computer was in a strong plastic case on the
right side of the HMMWV, plugged into a mounting unit
under the dashboard, with a round reel beside it. The case
unclipped easily from its mounting; the fiber-optic
cable was thin but strong. "I found it," Hardcastle
said.
  "Stand by."
  The remote control unit was a laptop computer
with a flip-up two-color LCD screen, a sealed
plastic-covered keyboard, and a finger-sizedjoystick
built into the base below the keyboard.
To Hardcastle's surprise, it was working. A
simple menu selection displayed on the screen, and
by touching a few buttons he got a radar
depiction of the skies around the city. After a few
moments, Hardcastle could understand the symbols on the
scope--the unknown aircraft, labeled was A on
the screen, was only ten miles to the south.
  "The remote control is working, and I've got a
depiction of the area here."
  "Good," Milford said. "That means the telemetry
between the AWACS and the unit there is functioning. Do you
see the up-caret symbol at the bottom of the
screen? Zoom the picture in or out
to see it."
  "I see it."
  "Just move the cursor with the joystick onto the
caret symbol at the bottom of the screen and press
the button below the trackball."" Hardcastle
did, and a diamond symbol surrounded the symbol.
  "What happened?"
  "I got a diamond around the caret."
  "Good. You should see a menu on the bottom of the
screen, with a button or function key that says
something like ENCJAGE or ATTACK. Do you see it?
  Yes. It's a covered switch that says
ENGAGE.
  "Good. Get out of the unit, clear yourself and everyone
else away by at least fifty feet, and press the
button. The turret should turn and the missile
launchers should start tracking the target.
  You can plug your headset into the side of the
remote-control device.
  The missiles will launch when it gets within
range. Go ahead."
  Hardcastle plugged the driver's Kevlar
helmet communications cord into the computer, got out
of the vehicle, unreeled the fiberoptic data cable
at least fifty feet, and knelt.
Harley was well behind him, tending to Wilkes. He
made sure the diamond designate symbol was still
on the hostile was A symbol, then hit the
ENGAGE button.
  It turned yellow, then began to blink. The
turret, which was pointed west, did not move. "The
turret didn't move, and the ENGAGE button is
blinking yellow," Hardcastle radioed back.
  "I'm not sure what that means," Milford said.
"Deselect the ENGAGE button, then go to the
unit and see if the turret is jammed and that it can
turn freely." Hardcastle did it, then ran to the
Avenger unit.
  Sure enough, the entire circular track that the
turret rode on was twisted and almost completely
sheared off the base. There was no way it was going
to move.
  "I don't think it's going to move,"
Hardcastle radioed. "The antitank missile
twisted the turret track all to hell. There's
hydraulic fluid all over the place."
  "Can it slew in the other direction?"
  . "Negative. The whole turret is off the
track. It would take a crane to lift it back
on."
  "Then you better get out of the area as fast as you can,
Admiral," Milford responded. "You've done
all you can. The plane will be overhead in about five
to six minutes."
  Hardcastle wasn't ready to give up, but he
didn't want anyone else nearby. Their car
didn't look like it was going anywhere, either.
  "Deborah, start heading toward the Capitol
Building--we've got about five minutes to make
it."
  "What about the Director?"
  "Just get going--I'll bring Wilkes.
Cazaux's going to bomb the White House, and the
explosive he's using could fry us all. The
Capitol will be the safest place for us. Can you
drag Wilkes over there?"
  "I don't think so," Harley said. "I'm
staying here with you, Ian.
  There's no other choice."
  "I'll take Wilkes in a minute. You head
for the Capitol. Get going."
  Harley reluctantly got to her feet and began
trotting east toward the Capitol Building.
Hardcastle found a four-cell flashlight and
examined the interior of the Avenger--and
immediately struck paydirt.
  He dragged two green steel-and-plastic cases
out from storage racks behind the passenger seat and opened
them to find a large shoulderstpistol grip assembly
and two cylindrical cans.
  "What are they?" Harley asked behind him.
  "I said get moving toward the Capitol."
  "I can't make it--I can hardly see where I'm
going," Harley said.
  "I'll help you. Do you know what they are?"
  Hardcastle cursed and pulled a
yellow-and-black tab on one side of the pistol
grip. A metal grilled device resembling an
open animal cage popped out of the right side of the
unit. "It's a Stinger missile shoulder grip
assembly," Hardcastle said. "I think we can
fire the missiles from this unit from the shoulder. All
we have to do is figure out how to get the missiles out
of the launchers."
  "Looks like the Army already thought of that," Harley
said.
  She shined the flashlight into the lid of the carrying
case, where they saw color-cartoon-like pictures
detailing how to do it. Two latches on the bottom
side of the right Stinger launcher opened an
access panel, where they could see inside the launcher
itself; two more latches on the side of one of the green
aluminum tubes allowed it to slide free out the
rear end of the launcher. She helped slide the
aluminum tube onto the pistol grip assembly
and lock it into place.
  Hardcastle took one of the cylindrical cans,
inserted it into a hole just forward of the trigger, and
twisted it to lock it in place.
  A green light on the side of the grip told him
the unit was on.
  "Get that computer over there," Hardcastle said.
"It has a map telling where Cazaux's plane
is." Harley retrieved the computer, opened it, and
studied the screen. Meanwhile, Hardcastle keyed
the mike switch on his helmet headset: "Leather,
this is Hardcastle.
  I've found the Stinger shoulder launchers. I'm
going to try to shoot it with a Stinger."
  "You ever shoot a Stinger before, Admiral?"
  "How hard can it be?" Hardcastle asked. "The
instructions are printed in cartoons."
  "Three miles," Harley said, "heading right for
us."
  "Can you describe those instructions
to me?" Hardcastle asked.
  Harley studied the drawings for a moment. "Looks
like a button on the left side of the grip is for the
.. . the I.f.f?"
  was "Identification Friend or Foe," was
Hardcastle said. "It'll tell us if the plane
is transmitting proper codes. Doesn't
matter--if it flies near here, I'm shooting it.
Next."
  "Large lever behind the grip. Pull down with your
thumb when the target is within range. Powers the
missile gyro, cools the seeker head, and charges
the eject gas cylinder."
  "What's the range?"
  Harley checked the computer screen: "Two
miles."
  The time seemed to drag on forever. Hardcastle
couldn't see a thing in the sky--the few lights and the
remains of the fires to the south were destroying his night
vision, and now the sirens wailing around the city
prevented him from hearing anything. "Range!" he
shouted.
  "One-point-five miles .. ."
  "I see it .. . Jesus, it's low!"
Hardcastle shouted. It was a small
single-engine Cessna with a fixed landing gear, and it
looked like it was less than a hundred feet in the
air. It was just south of the Tidal Basin, skimming
the treetops. An occasional gust of wind or
thermal current from the fires pushed the plane
sideways or caused it to lose altitude, but it
always regained its heading--it was homing directly for the
White House. Hardcastle moved the large lever
behind the pistol grip down until it snapped to the
stop, and he heard a sudden shot of
high-compression air and a loud whirring sound. "I
think it's on. What next?"
  "Large button on the very front of the grip--
squeeze it with your thumb and hold to open the
seeker-head shutter. Look through the sight and center
the target in the sight."
  Hardcastle looked over the sight, first to line up
the Cessna, then looked through the sight. There was a
sawtooth frame under a tiny round circle in the
center of the sight. When Hardcastle placed the
Cessna inside the center of the circle, he heard
a loud beep beep beep beep beep .. .
"It's beeping. What next?"
  "Pull the trigger and kill that motherfucker,"
Harley said.
  Hardcastle squeezed the trigger.
  There was a very loud voosh! with very little kickback.
The missile popped out of the aluminum tube and
sailed skyward .. .
  and.
  immediately fell to earth about fifty yards ahead of
them. A second later the missile's motor
fired, and it skittered across the ground for hundreds of
yards until it was lost from sight. "Shit! It
didn't track! It didn't go!" Hardcastle
shouted.
  "It should've gone, "Harley shouted. "We did
everything right."
  But Hardcastle was already scrambling to remove
another missile from the Avenger launcher. He
removed the launch tube from the shoulder grip,
twisted off the hot battery cylinder, loaded
another missile on the shoulder grip, and twisted
on another battery unit.
  By the time Hardcastle hefted the Stinger onto his
right shoulder again, the Cessna was over the Jefferson
Memorial, swooping lower and lower. Its wings
swung wildly as it caught in the hot lower air
currents as it passed over the flaming ground path
of the terrorist 747. Hardcastle lined up
on the Cessna once again, flipped the BCU
activation lever down, and .. .
  .. . as soon as he did so, white acidic
gas began streaming out both ends of the missile.
Hardcastle threw the missile and launcher on the
ground. The gas was coming out at high pressure now,
and the battery unit underneath the grip was smoking. "The
missile must've been bad," Hardcastle said.
Harley was already moving toward the Avenger launcher
to pull off another missile, so Hardcastle opened
the second case to get another launcher--and he had
a chance to study the instructions himself .. .
  7'hat's it! he exclaimed to himself.
  The missile was pushed out of the launch tube
by compressed nitrogen gas, and there was a
1.5-second delay before the rocket motor
fired.
  The launch tube needed to be "super-elevated,"
or raised high enough so the missile would not hit the
ground before the rocket motor would fire. The last
drawing before squeezing the trigger described the final
lineup of the target in the sight and how
to superelevate: after the target was acquired and
locked on with the beeping tone, the Stinger had to be
raised until the target nestled into one of the
sawtooth notches on the bottom of the sight,
depending on the direction the target was flying, to lead
the target. The missile's seeker head would still be
tracking the target all the way, and when the rocket
motor fired it would home in and kill.
  By the time they loaded the third missile and
screwed in a new battery unit, the Cessna was
almost directly overhead, flying less than the
length of a football field west of the Washington
Monument.
  Hardcastle could clearly see two objects under
the wings of the Cessna--those had to be the fuel-air
explosives. He let the Cessna fly north of
his position, then, as it flew over Constitution
Avenue, activated the battery unit, squeezed
the seeker head uncage switch, heard the beeping
sound, lined up on the Cessna for the last .. .
  "Freeze!" someone shouted behind him. "FBI!
Drop that missile launcher now!"
  "No!" Harley shouted. "I'm Harley,
Secret Service!" She held up her U.s.
Treasury Department ID wallet, hoping that the
FBI agent would notice the standard federal agent
"safe signal"--looping one finger over on the
badge side and two fingers on the ID
card side. "We're trying to stop that plane!"
  was I said drop it! was Obviously he was too
keyed-up to notice Harley's safe signal.
To the FBI agent who had driven up to the group at
the Washington Monument, it looked as if
Hardcastle were trying to launch a bazooka round at
the White House or the Commerce Department
Building.
  "No!" Harley shouted. "I'm Secret
Service! He's authorized!
  Don't! was Hardcastle felt the bullets
crash into the middle of his back like two sharp rapid
punches--but the bulletproof vest saved his life.
  He superelevated the Stinger launcher, placing the
target in the middle notch on the bottom of the sight
so the muzzle of the launcher was raised well over the
Cessna, and squeezed the trigger .. . just as two
bullets hit the back of his Kevlar helmet. The
FBI agent couldn't get the shooter in the back, so
he tried for a head shot, and this time he got him.
  The missile popped out of the launch tube and
sailed high overhead, nearly out of sight--but nowhere
near the Cessna.
  Hardcastle thought it was flying out of control again.
It was our last chance, damn it, he thought as
he fell forward on his face, dazed and
immobilized by the shock.
  Our last chance .. . God, no .. .
  He looked up toward the White House when
someone shouted, "Look!"
  Two quick puffs of fire could be seen on the wings
of the Cessna as the fuel-air explosives
canisters released, just as the Cessna passed over
the Zero Milestone at the north end of the Ellipse
and continued on toward the White House.
  "Everyone get down! Get down!" Hardcastle
murmured. "The bombs .
  .
  . the bombs are going .. . going off .. ." But
he couldn't seem to make his mouth move anymore.
  Just as the Stinger missile started to nose over and
head back to earth, the rocket motor ignited with a
bright orange tongue of fire, and a split second
later the missile arched gracefully and smoothly
right into the front left side of the Cessna's engine
compartment, near an exhaust stack. The
one-and-a-half-pound warhead exploded on contact,
and the Cessna nosed over, spiraled down, and
crashed on the south lawn of the White House.
  But as the canisters began to disperse the
deadly high-explosive mixture, the Stinger
missile exploded. The cloud of explosive
vapors had no chance to properly disperse and mix with the
air that would have given it its tremendous explosive
power. The fireball that erupted just over the south
lawn was still a thousand feet in diameter, large enough
to blacken the entire south lawn and blow out windows
at the Old Executive Office Building and the
Treasury Department.
  The polycarbonate antisniper windows of the
White House rippled and shook from the explosion, but
remained intact. Harley could feel the intense heat
of the fireball a half-mile away. There were
several loud explosions as the bomblets from the
fuel-air explosives harmlessly hit the ground,
tossed several hundred feet away by the force of the
blast.
  Harley and the FBI agent ran over
to Hardcastle together. The agent had his gun out and
aimed at Hardcastle's head, but Harley shoved
her badge and ID in the guy's face. "Call
an ambulance, you idiot," she ordered. "He just
saved the White House. The Director is hurt
too--she's over there."
  "The Director .. . of the FBI?"
  "No, the damned director of "I Love
Lucy."
  his
  "Well, Jesus, Agent, how the hell am I
supposed to--"
  "Just get an ambulance, damn it!" Harley
yelled. She carefully unbuckled the helmet--it
fell apart in pieces in her hands. "Ian!
  Are you all right? Can you hear me?" There was no
response. The back of his head was covered with
blood, the glistening red blood contrasting well with his
thin gray hair. "Ian? Stay with me, stay with
me! his
  "All right, all right, Deborah," a subdued,
strained voice murmured into the ground. "Just answer
the damned phone, will you please? The ringing is driving
me crazy."
  Epilogue
  The Next Morning The closest undamaged
airport to Washington that could be to tally secured was
Naval Air Station Patuxent
River-Trapnell, about forty miles southeast. The
airspace for fifty miles in all directions was
closed from the surface to infinity, secured with
rapidly reactivated Patriot and
Hawk surface-to-air missile sites and
constant fighter patrols. At precisely nine
A.m Air Force One--the real Air Force One
--touched down on Trapnell's
two-and-a-half-mile long runway. A formation of
three VH-53 V.i.p helicopters was
waiting, and the Pr a group of Cabinet members
boarded the middle one, ignoring the small knot of
reporters and photographers that had been allowed
to cover the President's arrival. It was obvious
to all that the President didn't feel like talking
to the press.
  After lift-off, the three Marine Corps
helicopters did an aerial shell game,
changing position in the formation so that no one on the
ground--no gunner, no terrorist, no assassin--
could tell which one carried the President. They flew
high and fast, heading first toward Arlington to trace the
final flight path of the 747 as it crashed into the
city. The only planes allowed to be anywhere near
the President were three F-16 fighters--one was
on high patrol at twenty thousand feet, the other
two orbiting at low altitude, separated from
Marine One by three miles. They had orders
to shoot any aircraft that.
  strayed within twenty miles of the President, no
questions asked, no warnings issued.
  The group of three helicopters flew over the
impact area near the Lincoln Memorial, then
traced the two-mile-long path of destruction across
the Reflecting Pool, the Kutz Bridge, the
Tidal Basin, and south Washington to survey the
damage. The burned, twisted hulk of the 747 was still
piled up against the Case Memorial Bridge, but
cranes had already been put in to start removing the
wreckage--the blue-and-white Air Force One
paint scheme could clearly be seen.
  Fireboats were still spraying water on smoldering
boats and buildings at the Capital Yacht
Club, the Washington Marina, and other buildings
along Water Street, and a thick rainbow of
spilled jet fuel could be seen streaming down the
Washington Channel toward the Potomac.
  The Auditors' Building, the Sylvan
Theater, and the Holocaust Museum were heavily
damaged. The southwest corner of the Bureau of
Engraving and Printing, the Outlet Bridge, the
Kutz Bridge, most of the cherry trees on the
east side of the Tidal Basin, the Japanese
Lantern, the john Pauljones
Memorial, and the Tidal Basin Paddle were
completely destroyed. Army and National Guard
troops had been dispatched to seal off the Bureau of
Engraving and Printing to protect against anyone
looting the valuable currency and note plates
inside. A few large-scale fires had broken
out near Southeastern University and Sixth
Street, and the area was alive with emergency lights and
streams of water being pumped onto apartments and
high-rises.
  The three helicopters then flew over to the
White House, all three coming in together in formation a
thousand feet in the air on a fast, high approach
west of the Washington Monument, north over the
Ellipse toward the south lawn, duplicating the
flight path of the Cessna on its computer-controlled
bomb run. The westernmost helicopter touched down
first, discharging ten heavily armed Secret Service
agents and lifting off again, before the middle
helicopter came in, bringing the President and the
First Lady, followed by the third helicopter with
other presidential advisers, a few reporters,
and more Secret Service agents.
  Army gunners with Stinger missiles and machine
guns were deployed on the roof of the White
House and in several nearby buildings, scanning the
skies in all directions for any sign of trouble.
  The White House didn't look so white that
morning.
  Its front had been slightly damaged, with some
missing stone and long streaks of black and gray across
the south side. The Old Executive Office
Building, the Treasury Department Building, and the
south lawn were battered and heavily blackened, with
trees and gardens still smoldering in all directions.
A steel helicopter combat landing zone mat had
been anchored to the south lawn for Marine One, and a
raised walkway had been set up so the
President would not have to walk across the scorched earth.
A wooden platform had been set up for the members
of the press, about sixty yards from where the President
would be walking toward the White House.
  The Q and A podium had been set up near the
press pit, but the walkway did not extend over
to it and no one expected the President to make a
statement on this very grim occasion. But as he emerged
from Marine One, several heavily armed Secret
Service agents took positions in front of the
press pit, facing toward the crowd with weapons
highly visible at port arms, and the
President walked across the scarred earth to the
podium, with the First Lady on his right side.
  The bulk of the bulletproof vests they wore under
their business suits were obvious to everyone.
  "I'm not going to take any questions," the
President said solemnly, "just the following
statement: I wish to convey my sincere condolences to the
families of all those who lost a loved one in this .
  .. this devastating tragedy. I share their pain,
and the pain of all Americans as they try to comprehend
this disaster.
  "I wish to thank the federal agents, District of
Columbia Police, and the members of the military
who responded when the disaster struck, especially
FBI Director Lam Wilkes, who was wounded
in an exchange of gunfire with Henri Cazaux
himself. The disaster would have been much worse if it had not
been for their efforts.
  "Finally, I want to ask for the cooperation of all
Americans as we work toward rebuilding the
capital and as we intensify our efforts to bring those
responsible for this disaster to justice. I pledge--"
Suddenly he stopped as something caught his eye and a
stirring in the crowd grabbed his attention. The
President was staring at .
  ..
  .. . a paper airplane that had sailed over the
reporters' heads, bobbing and flitting directly for
him. Four Secret Service agents grabbed the
President and pulled him and the First Lady toward the
White House, and suddenly unmarked Secret
Service trucks and D.c.
  Police cars were racing for the group of reporters
from parking areas near the Treasury Department
Building. The reporters and cameramen were instantly
surrounded by armed agents. "Wait a minute!
  Wait!"
  the President shouted, twisting in the Secret
Service agents' arms. "I want that note! I
want to see it!" But the Secret Service hustled
him and the First Lady away to safety.
  The entire twelve-square-block area around the
White House was sealed off by the Secret Service
and D.c. Police, and all streets were cordoned
off. As the D.c. Police got more units into the
area, the dozens of Secret Service agents
deployed were able to withdraw into the White House compound
itself, leaving the D.c. Police and National Park
Service officers to deal with the sudden crunch of
traffic and the flood of curious
onlookers. In the confusion, no one noticed one of the
Secret Service agents standing in the shadows near
the statue of Alexander Hamilton as he removed
his earpiece, then his jacket and tie, and casually
walked off down the street toward the Hotel
Washington and a waiting limousine.
  "That was a really silly thing to do, Henri,"
Gregory Townsend said as the limo headed off down
Pennsylvania Avenue. He lowered the Browning
Hi-Power semiautomatic pistol he held.
"We should be a hundred miles from this bloody
city."
  "I like Washington, Gregory," Henri
Cazaux said with a glint of humor in his eyes,
adjusting the bandages that were tightly wound around his chest
and ribs to try to make himself a bit more comfortable. "I
think we will set up our new base of operations here.
  What do you think?"
  Townsend motioned to a metal suitcase on the
seat across from them. "I think you should take your cash,
use all of the survival skills you possess, and
get out of this country as fast as you can," Townsend
said. "You know where Lake's ranch is in Brazil,
you can access his Swiss bank accounts, and you must have
a plane or boat stashed somewhere--go
to Brazil and relax for a while. The Americans will
go back to business as usual soon, and that's when you
can consider coming back."
  "The Devil never takes a holiday,"
Cazaux said. "My work is not finished,
Gregory. You noticed how easy it was to slip
into a closed presidential press conference as one of
their own Secret Service agents? They are
calling in even more agents, unrecognizable to each
other. My goal is to get inside the White
House itself; perhaps into the First Lady's bedroom,
fuck her, and finally destroy that place.
  Nothing will stop me."
  "Henri, the business accounts and contacts Lake
set up for you are worth billions to us," Townsend
insisted. "If we go back into business, we'll be
the toast of the international arms market.
  We'll command top dollar, and no one will screw
with us. You are the top dog, Henri. Why waste
all that on a scheme like buggering the Steel
Magnolia? his
  "Because I have a score to settle, Gregory,"
Cazaux said, wincing as a muscle in his chest
pulled one of the gunshot wounds wider.
  "Because I have been blessed with
immortality. The money doesn't matter, don't
you see that? Madame Vega was right--why waste my
gift on selling a few weapons or smuggling
drugs, when I can use my powers to destroy the
greatest nation on earth? No, I have big plans for
us, Gregory. I will have hundreds of soldiers that
will rally to my side.
  I will destroy this entire city, and by doing so bring
an entire nation to its knees. I will .. ."
  was Oh, bloody hell, was Townsend muttered,
rolling his eyes.
  "Henri, I've had enough." He turned the
Browning on Henri Cazaux, pulled the trigger,
and squeezed off a half-dozen rounds.
  Fortunately, the Black Talon super-expanding
low-velocity bullets did not bust out of the armored
side doors of the security stretch limo.
  Cazaux looked at the glistening red bullet
holes in his chest and stomach, and Townsend saw his
eyes flare in red-hot, intense anger as he drew
a knife from his behind-the-neck sheath--but Townsend was
able to easily deflect Cazaux's weak stab,
disarm him, put one more bullet into Cazaux's
forehead, and topple the body to the floor. Townsend
then calmly raised the privacy screen
between the cabin and driver and aimed the smoking Browning
at the driver.
  "Who do you work for?"
  "I work for Captain Townsend," the driver
replied immediately.
  "Correct," Townsend said. "Now find me a
nice, quiet place to get rid of this mess."