Brown, Dale - Independent 04 (69 page)

 
          
“All
Leather-600 and -700 units, this is Leather-601,” the commander of the Hawk
battalion said on the command net. “ICC is down, repeat, ICC is down, -601 is
taking operational control. Bandit-1 bearing zero-one-zero magnetic,
twenty-eight miles, status is batteries released tight, repeat, status is
batteries released tight, all units—”

 
          
And
then that transmission stopped.

 
          
“What
the fuck ... ?”

 
          
“Hey,
guys ... er, Leather-700 units, this is -711,1 see a fire over on
East
Potomac
Island
Park
,” one of the crew members on the Avenger at
West
Potomac
Park
radioed. “I see ... holy shit, man, I see
big explosions south across the Inlet, over on
East
Potomac
Island
. I think the Hawk site just got wiped.”

 
          
“Say
again, Winfield?” Lathrop radioed. “You say you saw explosions?”

 
          
When
Lathrop released the mike button, the gunner on Leather-711 named Winfield was
already reporting: “... and I see several guys headin’ this way ... shit, man,
* shit, they’re
firing
at me, all
units ... you motherfucker!”

 
          
“Win,
what the hell’s going on?” But then Lathrop looked to his left and saw two men
dressed in jogging shorts but carrying rather big knapsacks or duffel bags
running down the long walkway to the west of the
Washington
Monument
. He rose out of his seat and shouted to his
security guard, “Hey, Kelly, watch those two guys to the west. Don’t let anyone
near the unit! Some shit’s going down out there! We lost contact with Winfield
in -711.”

 
          
The
Army guard named Kelly moved over to the left rear comer of the Avenger unit
and spotted the two guys trying to casually jog over toward them. Kelly
shouted,
“Hold it!
Stop where you
are!” The joggers didn’t stop. A D.C. Police cruiser on
Seventeenth Street
spotted the joggers and turned on its
lights, trying to get them to stop. The first one hesitated, jogging in place a
bit until the second guy caught up with him, then they continued. The Police
cruiser jumped the curb and started down the walkway, issuing a warning to stop
on their PA system. The joggers kept on coming. Kelly leveled his M-16 and
shouted, “I said,
halt! Last warning!
Stop!
”

 
          
The
joggers angled over away from the
Washington
Monument
, about fifty yards or so away from the Avenger,
near a small information kiosk.. . then suddenly stopped, both of them, and put
their duffel bags down.

 
          
“What’s
the problem, man?” one of the joggers shouted. “What’s going on?”

 
          
Kelly
shouted, “Leave those bags on the ground and raise your—” But he was
interrupted by a terrific explosion that rolled across The Mall. A bright
yellow fire was burning, somewhere near the Capitol.

 
          
“-712,
you read me?” Lathrop radioed. “Wood, man, answer up ... -712, you read me?
What’s that fire ... ?” But Lathrop knew what it was—it was the burning hulk of
the Avenger stationed west of the Capitol. Someone was picking off all the air
defense units around the Capital, one by one...

 
          
...
and now they were attacking here. The two joggers had leaped behind the
information kiosk, out of sight of the Avenger crew—and suddenly a burst of
automatic gunfire erupted, sweeping across Lathrop’s Avenger. The D.C. Police
car that was speeding toward them slammed on its brakes, and another burst of
automatic gunfire sprayed it with bullets. Kelly ran behind the Avenger and
returned fire with his M-16, chopping holes in the fiberglass kiosk. The D.C.
Police cruiser was getting chopped up badly—they had some heavy firepower .. .

 
          
Lathrop
closed his canopy and swung his turret westward toward the kiosk. Machine-gun
fire peppered the polycarbonate canopy, and 9-millimeter bullet holes dented
it, but thankfully did not penetrate. One of the joggers bolted toward the
police cruiser, firing on the run. Lathrop tracked him with ease in his
infrared scanner window, flicked his arm switch to
guns,
hit the
enable
button
on the left turret control, and squeezed the trigger on the right turret grip.
From only about two hundred feet away, the Avenger’s .50-caliber heavy machine
gun—designed to blow fifty- thousand-pound aircraft out of the sky a mile away—
chopped the first jogger up into several large chunks in less than a second.
Lathrop immediately swung the turret back around and reacquired the kiosk,
ready to blow the shit out of it as well...

 
          
...
but the second jogger had pulled out a LAWS (Lightweight Antitank Weapon
System) rocket from his duffel bag, aimed and fired, and from less than two
hundred feet away he could not miss. It seemed as if the rocket was headed
straight for the space between Lathrop’s eyes. He felt an incredible blast rock
his eight-thousand-pound vehicle and saw a bright flash of light, and then he
saw and felt nothing...

 
          
Hoover
FBI Building That Same Time

           
It was the closest thing to an
interrogation any of them had ever been subjected to. Deborah Harley, Ian
Hardcastle, and the Deputy U.S. Marshal of the
United States
, William Landers, along with several
Marshals Service agents and U.S. Navy pilots had been questioned in the
Director’s conference room for the past nine hours on the CV-22 raid at
Cazaux’s estate in Bedminster, and the attempted intercept of
Harold
Lake
and Ted Fell in
Newburgh
. They had been subjected to “tag-team”
questioning by a small army of investigators—asked to draw detailed maps of their
route of flight and movements in the mansion once the attack was under way,
describe all of their communications routines, and provide exhaustive records
of everything concerning the mission, from where they bought fuel for the PAVE
HAMMER tilt-rotor aircraft to a full list of all the weapons used.

 
          
Finally,
Judge Lani Wilkes, the Director of the FBI, came to visit the group. While
staffers and other witnesses had been shuffling in and out all day retrieving
records that the FBI requested, Harley and Hardcastle had been there the entire
time, and they were stiff and tired as they got to their feet when Wilkes
entered the conference room. “Good evening, Agent Harley, Admiral Hardcastle,”
she greeted them. “I appreciate your assisting the Bureau in preparing our
report to the Justice Department and the White House. I’m told you’ve been here
since early this afternoon.”

 
          
.
“You know damn well we’ve been here all day,” Hardcastle snapped angrily. He
had ditched his coat and tie long ago and had changed into a short-sleeve shirt
and comfortable loafers* Harley was in a business suit but had removed her
jacket—she still looked as calm and fresh as she did when she began the
marathon “debriefing” session.

 
          
“Something
wrong, Admiral?” Wilkes asked sweetly.

 
          
“We
should have been allowed to submit our reports on the incident first before all
this began,” Hardcastle said. “I think it would’ve been more
efficient
to take our report and
then
fill in the details later. We’re
essentially duplicating our reports and being kept here like prisoners. We
should—”

 
          
“Admiral,
I’ve been FBI Director for three years, and I’ve been involved in thousands of
criminal and interagency investigations in my thirty years of law enforcement,”
Wilkes interrupted crisply, “so I think I know a thing or two about how to
conduct an investigation and how to take a report. Frankly, judging by your
actions in the raid on the Bedminster estate, I question whether you have any
idea on proper or legal law-enforcement actions. Do us both a favor, Admiral,
and let the Bureau do its job—for a change.” She surveyed the room, noticing
empty drink cups and sandwich boxes in the trash cans. “I see you’re being
taken care of here. This shouldn’t take too much longer. I’m sure you agree
that it’s better if we just get this whole thing over with.”

 
          
“Judge
Wilkes, do you still think the body recovered at the mansion was Henri Cazaux?”
Harley asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

 
          
Wilkes
narrowed her eyes in irritation at the question. “I’m sorry,” Wilkes replied
icily, “but I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation with you, Agent
Harley.”

 
          
“She’s
as much a part of the investigation as you are, Judge Wilkes,” Hardcastle
announced. “Perhaps much more so.”

 
          
“Just
because you flagrantly disregarded Justice Department policy and procedures and
shot up a nest of terrorists doesn’t give you a need-to-know,” Wilkes hissed.
“If we weren’t talking about Henri Cazaux, I’d see to it that you had your
stars yanked, you and Deputy U.S. Marshal Landers. You don’t seem to care or
realize that you interfered with the biggest Bureau investigation since the
World
Trade
Center
bombing. However, I will say that the
cannon you used to kill him and the eleven other persons inside the place
really did a good job in obscuring their features and making identification
more difficult—”

 
          
“So
this whole interrogation is your way of getting back at us, right, Judge
Wilkes?” Landers asked, refusing to be cowed by the Director of the FBI or
anyone else. “You don’t have to lock us up—just ‘debrief us for the next six
weeks until the press is done raking us over the coals for the ‘brutal’ attack
on the estate and the ‘incompetent’ way we handled
Harold
Lake
’s capture.”

 
          
“Deputy
Landers, all these little problems you’ve encountered have nothing to do with
me—you caused them all, you and Admiral Hardcastle’s damn-the-torpedoes, full-
speed-ahead and attack-dog solutions to every problem that crops up,” Wilkes
said. “You interfered with an FBI investigation, and I’ve got to clean up your
mess. Congress is going to question us next week on what happened, and I’m
going to be ready, and frankly, if you’re inconvenienced by this, I don’t
really care. Now, I’ve asked for your cooperation. If you refuse to give it,
I’ll have no choice but to schedule a deposition and compel you to attend.”

 
          
“And
make sure that such a summons is made quite public,” Hardcastle interjected.

 
          
“All
such summonses are a matter of public record, Admiral,” Wilkes said, not
bothering to hide her contempt. “Now, if you’ll excuse me . ..” Just then her
pager went off, and she went over to a nearby office phone on the conference
room table. “Director Wilkes ... a
what?
When
. .. ? I’ll be right down ... no, I don’t want to deploy BLACK TI.. . I said,
I’ll be right down.” She slammed the phone down and hurried to the door.

 
          
Both
Hardcastle and Harley were on their feet—by the look on Wilkes’ face, they both
knew something terrible was wrong. “What is it, Judge?” Hardcastle asked.

 
          
.
“Nothing ... I’ll brief you later.”

 
          
“Receiving
a recommendation from your command center to deploy BLACK TIGER is not exactly
‘nothing,’ Judge,” Deputy Chief U.S. Marshal Landers pointed out. “What’s BLACK
TIGER?” Hardcastle asked.

 
          
“That’s
none of your concern” Wilkes warned.

 
          
“BLACK
TIGER is the classified code name for the joint federal and military team
designed to protect the capital,” Harley said to Hardcastle. “In peacetime,
it’s mostly to protect against rioters and civil unrest. The Attorney General
is the commander; senior representatives are from the FBI, the U.S. Marshals
Service—Bill here is the Marshals’ rep—the Secret Service, and the two-star
commanding general of the Military District of Washington, plus other military
reps. There was an attack somewhere in the capital—wasn’t there, Judge Wilkes?”