Brown, Dale - Independent 04

by Storming Heaven (v1. 1)

  “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 ‘but’ coming ...”

  “Yes, sir. But, 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, sir—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 1940s 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 gyp- syish, 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 neardestitute 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 war—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 bat
hed 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 room/bedroom 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.