Brown, Dale - Independent 04 (21 page)

 
          
“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 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 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, 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.

 
          
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 Al 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 Al 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
arc 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.”