Brown, Dale - Independent 04

by Storming Heaven (v1. 1)

  “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 hundred 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 AR-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 fire- fight. “Go downstairs in the wine cellar until this is over.”

  Jo Ann Vega saw the gunsel’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 out 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 man-sized 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 path created by the Chain Gun, they were safe 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 gunsels 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 GIs, 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-22s. “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 iron-clad 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 and removed the thin Reactor gloves. One of the 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 moving even faster. “How in the hell did you know, Deputy Lassen?”

  “Good ol’-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 instead 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 Foil; 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 Lani 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 & K MP5 submachine gun, asked, “Would you like a briefing on the operation befo
re 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 midsentence, 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.