Brown, Dale - Independent 04

by Storming Heaven (v1. 1)

  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 & 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 nosedive 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 PDA (personal digital assistant), a handheld computer about the size of a paperback book. The PDA 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 faxes. He activated the PDA 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 PDA 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 A1 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 than Vincenti, and even though he was of higher 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, Al,” 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, Al?”

  “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, Al,” Gaspar said. Although military aircraft did not have cockpit voice recorders, the F-16’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 HUD tape, and I’ll give it to every TV and radio station I can think of.”

  “What the hell’s with you, Al?” 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 his videotape 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 neve
r 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 mother- fucking 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, Al, 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 SFO and drop those explosives, why we let Cazaux kill so many persons on the ground. I will tell you right now, bub, 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, Al, I’ll add my endorsement over your signature, recommending no disciplinary action and immediate return to flight status—for all the good it’ll do,” Gaspar said. “I think you’re right, chum—the feds want heads to roll because Cazaux got away—and you’ve been elected. The new director of the FBI herself, Lani ‘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. Lani 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, Al,” 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 SFO.”

  “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 SFO, whichever he could do before getting shot down.”

  “The press and the government don’t see it that way, Al,” 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 Lani Wilkes that, tell her.”

  “Forget about Cazaux and Wilkes now, Al,” 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. “VIP 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 Lani 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,” Lani 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, Lani 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 registr
ation 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, ATF 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.