Brown, Dale - Independent 04

by Storming Heaven (v1. 1)

  “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 “Shee-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 he had been dead for several hours. He nearly stumbled 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. “Out.”

  “My briefcase,” Fell said, hesitating as long as he could. “I’ll get it.”

  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 darkhaired 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? 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 Belo 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 soldier^ who crossed Henri Cazaux. Remember that bloody bag, the black mass dangling from an artery, remember Ysidro’s sick grin. What chance did an attorney from 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 airpla
nes 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 boneyard for airliners—much like Davis-Monthan 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 of 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 shrink-wrap 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 Aeri- talia 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 and with a 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 as a target for his anger: “His son Brad Willis 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 sub
dued, 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.”