Brown, Dale - Independent 04 (46 page)

 
          
But
even more horrible than that was of a nation torn apart by a desperate,
cold-blooded act of hatred by Henri Cazaux, an incredible act of destruction
that would change millions of lives . . .

 
          
“Hello,
Jo Ann.”

 
          
Vega
whirled around and saw him. Jesus, he was as silent as a snake. His hair, brown
and curly with a hint of gray around the temples, was growing back with
astounding speed, so fast that he appeared a completely different person. He
seemed thinner, but that only helped to accentuate his wiry, muscular frame and
lean, cheetah-like profile. He wore a sports coat over a black T-shirt, which
he removed as soon as he entered her room.

 
          
“Henri,”
she greeted him, suddenly short of breath both by being startled by him and by
the excitement of seeing him again. “It’s good to see you.”

 
          
“You
look good, Jo Ann,” Cazaux said casually. His words made her heart flutter.
They were the most caring words he had ever said to her. He stepped toward her,
his eyes roaming her body momentarily, and then he said in French, “pi
va,
Jo Ann. How have you been?”

 
          
“pi
va bien, merci,
Henri,” she replied.
“I’m lonely without you, Henri. I wish you would stay with me, but—” “You have
already seen otherwise,” Cazaux finished for her. “You know the forces that
drive me, Jo Ann. You know that the power that is the instrument of my revenge
is stronger than both of us. I have come so that you can tell me more about my
future.”

 
          
“I
don’t know that the forces that propel you are too strong to be overcome,
Henri,” Vega interrupted. “I’ve seen many of your futures. You are vulnerable
now.” “Vulnerable? How?”

 
          
“The
forces of good are organizing against you,” Vega said. “There is weakness among
your troops. Their resolve is not as strong as yours. You must use your power
to keep all those around you in line.”

 
          
“I
have seen to that,” Cazaux said with a smile. “You shall see.”

 
          
“Good,”
Vega said. She averted her eyes slightly, as if embarrassed to tell all. Cazaux
reached out and grasped her arm, wordlessly ordering her to continue: “The
master, he is concerned about your targets,” the woman said. “These small
airports, this emphasis on these little companies.”

 
          
“I
don’t understand, Jo Ann.”

 
          
“The
dark master has given you an enormous gift, Henri,” Vega said. “Eternal life,
power beyond any mortal, the vision, the strength—and you waste it on whatever
this stockbroker tells you to attack.”

 
          
“He
has chosen his targets carefully,” Cazaux said. “I don’t understand all that he
does, but the money he earns for us is far beyond anything I’ve ever seen
before in my life.”

 
          
“Do
you think the dark master cares about how much money you make, Henri?” Vega
asked. “He has given you a gift much more precious than money. Are you going to
waste it on earning a few more dollars?”

 
          
“Then
what?” Cazaux asked. “You’re my adviser! Tell me!”

 
          
She
stared at him, said nothing, then they both diverted their attention to the
television. A group of men and women were standing in front of the White House
for an impromptu press conference: “Henri Cazaux is a menace to American
society, and I think it’s time the White House and the Pentagon take off the
kid gloves and get serious about stopping this bastard,” the man in the lead
said. He was identified by a caption as former Vice President Kevin Martindale.
He continued, “So far the White House has put a gag order on their plans on how
to deal with this crisis, which claimed thirty-one more victims this morning
near
Dallas
. The American people deserve to be told how
the Administration is responding to the crisis.”

 
          
“There,”
Vega said. “That is your target.”

 
          
“What?
Those men? I agree they should be executed, but I don’t—”

 
          
“I
and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are calling for a bipartisan
Senate hearing on the terrorist crisis that is paralyzing our country,” another
person, identified as Senator Georgette Heyerdahl, said. “What we are demanding
is a full-scale military-led manhunt for Henri Cazaux.” “A manhunt!” Cazaux
laughed. “Those idiots are incapable of mounting a manhunt for a child, let
alone a group of trained soldiers.”

 
          
“Congress
will enact legislation authorizing full military participation in the hunt for
Cazaux,” Heyerdahl continued. “We are asking that the President federalize the
National Guard to assist law enforcement agencies to patrol the airports,
protect the air defense units, fly along on scheduled commercial flights, and
assist in the FBI investigation.” The image shifted to shots of soldiers with
Stinger shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, and then to an aerial shot of the
White House.

           
“There,” Vega said, a smile coming
to her full red lips. “That is your target.” Cazaux was staring with complete
surprise at the aerial view of the White House and of the Capitol Mall.

 
          
The
White House?
The
Capitol?
But . . . But, of course...

 
          
“Yes,”
he breathed, his chest tightening in anticipation. “Yes, that’s it. No more
airports, no more little business run by nobodies.”

 
          
Oh
yes, he was going to be unstoppable.

 
          
“The
attack on
Dallas-Fort
Worth
Airport
was a complete failure,” Cazaux said later
to his assembled staff officers. Almost everyone except Tomas Ysidro remained
perfectly still in case any movement might be noticed by their angry commander.
He tossed a plastic bag onto the circular glass coffee table before them. “I
will not tolerate any more failures from this staff. Is that clear?”

 
          
The
plastic bag landed on the table with a gut-wrenching
splut!
and flopped open, but no one dared to touch it—no one except
Ysidro, who was sick enough to do just about anything anyone could possibly
imagine. Under Cazaux’s stem gaze, Ysidro held the bag up, examined its
contents, smiled at Cazaux and nodded approvingly, then reached in and pulled a
black, sticky blob out of the bag by a long rubbery tube.

 
          
“This
belonged to Georges Lechamps, the butthead who hired those two dope-smoking
pilots for the Dallas mission, eh, Henri?” Ysidro said, holding the thing up
and twirling the tube as if he were carefully studying the thing, although he
was really looking to see everyone else’s reaction. Cazaux said nothing, but
watched as everyone stared in horror at the squishy black blob that Ysidro was
handling and examining. “Well, I guess ol’ Georges’ heart
really
wasn’t in his work!” Ysidro laughed, letting the
now-recognizable mass drop back into the bag.

 
          
That
was enough for
Harold
Lake
’s assistant, Ted Fell—he barely made it out
of the dining room before vomiting in a bathroom off the billiard room down the
hall. Harold Lake felt equally as nauseated, but he was glad he could control
his stomach, because Cazaux and Ysidro watched Fell run out of the room with
utter disgust and disdain.

 
          
“I’ll
agree, Lechamps paid too much and got two worthless pilots to fly that
mission,” Gregory Townsend said, quickly ignoring the blood-filled bag of gore
on the table in front of him. “But the mission was important because it pointed
out the military’s defense setup. Our field people report that our Airtech was
destroyed by a Patriot missile fired from Carswell Air Force Base while the
Airtech was less than a thousand feet aboveground. That was a shot from about
fifteen miles away; a double missile launch, as I believe all Patriot attacks
are done. That tells us that the Patriot missiles alone have extraordinary capability.

 
          
“What
we learned about the other near-engagement was important as well. The Army let
that first unidentified 727 fly right to five miles outside Dallas-Fort Worth
Airport and still did not engage—at cruise speeds, that’s less than forty-five
seconds to a bomb-release point. Our people saw two F-16 fighters scramble from
the Dallas Naval Air Station, and those fighters did not engage either. At
least one and possibly several Hawk antiair batteries were within range, and
possibly even an Avenger Stinger mobile unit, and yet
no one
fired on the unidentified 727.”

 
          
“You
can believe that will not be the case the next time,” one of the other staff
officers said.

 
          
“The
next target will have to be saturated for any attack to be successful,”
Townsend summarized. “Multiple aircraft, multiple axes of attack. Follow the
flight plan as best as possible, then strike as close as possible to the
aerodrome. As we saw with the very first unidentified-aircraft alert in Dallas,
the mobile air defense units and the fighters escorting the suspect are not in
a favorable position to attack the suspect once he’s on the ground—they still
track him, to some extent, but they assume he is not a hostile target when his
wheels actually touch ground. We can use that fact to our advantage. Of course,
timing and speed are essential.”

 
          
“The
problem is getting pilots to fly these missions,” Ysidro said. “The money ain’t
attracting ’em anymore, Henri—everyone knows it’s a one-way trip.”

 
          
“That’s
not a problem,” Townsend said confidently. “We have a system that can fly any
of our planes by remote control now.”

 
          
“It
ain’t gonna fucking work, Townie,” Ysidro said. “Just find some cocky slug
pilot who wants the money. Stupid pilots will do anything.”

 
          
“My
GPS system has tested very well on a small singleengine plane,” Townsend said
emphatically. “It’s simple and basic, like a large radio-controlled model plane
except much more sophisticated. It uses a simple digital autopilot system with
altitude and vertical speed presets, hooked into a Global Positioning System
navigation set. I can launch, the plane by remote control, tie in the autopilot
and the satellite navigator, and it’ll fly right to the coordinates I punch in.
With the GPS controlling the plane’s altitude, I can have it dive-bomb right on
top of whatever coordinates you like.”

 
          
“The
GPS satellite system’s accuracy can be degraded by the Department of Defense,”
Cazaux said. “Our attacks call for precise guidance and accurate delivery.”

 
          
“With
those fuel-air explosives, Henri, you can miss the target by almost a half-mile
and still blow the shit out of it,” Townsend added.

 
          
Cazaux
thought about that idea for a moment, then nodded his agreement. “Very well, we
will use the GPS-controlled planes as well, but only with the smaller planes—I
want human pilots controlling the larger aircraft. Where are your
GPS-controlled planes, Gregory?”

 
          
“I
just flew the first one into Boone County Airport for testing,” Townsend
replied. “I can pick up the fuel-air explosives canisters and fly it anywhere
you want.”

           
“Very well.” Cazaux gave him a
destination airport, then said, “Tomas is correct—there seems to be no shortage
of pilots who will fly these missions foi* the proper sum of money. You are
authorized to offer any amount necessary to get a crew to fly our planes. But
understand this: any crew we contract with will either deliver the weapons on
target as specified, or they will die the same fate as Monsieur Lechamps. Is
that clear?” There was an immediate chorus of “Yes, sir” all round the table
and its grisly centerpiece.

 
          
“The
key to a successful strike now is to destroy the ground-based air defense sites
nearest the designated target,” Cazaux said. “We shall stage commando raids on
the nearest Patriot, Hawk, and Avenger batteries to the designated target, and
on the master command and control van on the ground. Our scouts can locate each
of these assets and plan coordinated attacks at every point.”