Brown, Dale - Independent 04 (19 page)

 
          
A
few hours after sunrise, after stealing another car, he was safely across the
border in
Nogales
. Shortly after that he could be in one of
his many hideouts in Mexico, safe from all but a determined paramilitary
assault—but he did not want to stop. Each time, the vision of his cargo plane
crashing into San Francisco International’s central terminal flashed in his
mind, and he smiled a sort of twisted, pathological smile. He knew he wanted to
see that kind of pure destruction again very, very soon. It was one way to get
even with the U.S. Air Force, the Marshals, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms, the entire
United States
fucking government. There was so much the
Americans had to pay for: torture, false imprisonment, rape, assault, robbery,
perjury—those were just the least of their crimes against Henri Cazaux over the
years. And as those years went by, Cazaux could add murder, conspiracy,
malicious prosecution, and numerous additional counts of perjury and contempt
of court. And Cazaux knew the
United States
would never be formally charged and tried
for any of these crimes, so he would issue the punishment himself.

           
Cazaux’s justice was in his heart,
his mind, his weapons, and his aircraft.

 
          
The
Americans had worked to almost put him out of business, permanently. That was
going to end.
America
had yet to feel the fury of a full-scale attack by Henri Cazaux. Now it
was time. Cazaux wanted to see
America
bleed, and attacking its most important and
yet most terrifying institution—its air traffic and air travel system—was going
to be the way to do it. It was so easy, and yet it was going to be so
devastating ...

 
          
It
had been a long time since Henri Cazaux had be£n in an American commercial
airport terminal—international terrorists rarely travel by commercial air
unless speed is a necessity—and what he saw surprised him. No one, he thought,
would consider spending one second longer than necessary in a bus station, or
taxi stand, or train station, but modem airports seemed to cater to travelers
who obviously spent a great deal of time there. Even relatively small
Phoenix-Sky Harbor International Airport had fancy restaurants, video arcades,
bookstores, hotels, an art museum, meeting and exercise rooms, even a small
amusement park with putt-putt golf and miniature movie theaters right on the
airport premises. While Cazaux was busy moving from one restroom to another
every fifteen minutes until his flight was called, trying to stay incognito, he
noticed people that seemed to hang around, enjoying themselves like tourists.
It was crazy ...

 
          
...
but what an inviting target. This place was packed! There were dozens of planes
parked at the gates, with thousands of persons choiring the terminal. One bomb
in the center of this place could kill hundreds, injure hundreds, destroy
perhaps billions of dollars of airplanes and property. But it would take a
thousand pounds of explosives, maybe more, to do the kind of damage he needed
to do, and he couldn’t truck that much nitro all the way into the heart of the
terminal...

 
          
...
but he could
drop
the explosives on
the terminal, just like he did at Mather Jetport and San Francisco
International. The Americans had no defense against an aerial assault. Yes,
there were air defense fighters, but they were only a few units scattered
around the periphery of the country. The FBI, perhaps even the military, would
eventually crack down on all unidentified or unauthorized flights, but it would
take many days to shut down America’s enormous air traffic system, and once
shut down it would surely crush the American way of life. Until then, he could
take an incredible toll on these mindless Americans. Three attacks, all in less
than a week, and he was certain that
America
would fall to its knees.

 
          
It
would take lots of planning, and money, and that meant a trip back east, to his
American headquarters in
New Jersey
—the Owl’s Nest—to meet with his senior staff to plan the operations.
But more importantly, he needed to know if his dreams of destroying
America
from within were possible. Again, the
answer was in the east, in
Newburgh
,
New York
. Only one person could advise him on how to
proceed, and he needed to see her as soon as possible.

 
          
Cazaux
remained in his Mexican stronghold in Nogales long enough to disguise himself,
effortlessly aging thirty years with simple makeup and posture techniques, then
used his forged American passport and boarded a flight from Nogales to
Albuquerque. Security was loose and there was no sign of pursuit, and booking a
flight to
Chicago
and beyond was easy. No one gave the bent,
alcoholic, emaciated-looking old man more than a passing glance as he boarded
the next plane.

 
 
          
New
York City
August 1995

 
         
When
his executive assistant found
Harold
G.
Lake
, the first thought he had was,
My God, he's going to jump.

 
          
The
sealed high-rise windows designed to keep the heat and the odor and the noises
of Manhattan out were triple-paned tempered glass, so, of course, it wasn’t
possible for Lake to jump (from here at least) unless he had a sledgehammer
hidden in his closet. But it was the
way
Lake
looked that worried Ted Fell,
Harold
Lake
’s attorney, executive assistant, and—if
anyone could properly be so categorized—friend and confidant.
Harold
Lake
. He was a brooder even on his best days,
and he could be depressing most days. Today, the tall, dark, slim entrepreneur,
investor, and Wall Street trader looked like a dog left out in the rain all
night.

 
          
“Got
those letters of intent ready for your signature,” Fell reported. “I see no
problems at all with the debt restructuring. The next few weeks should be okay.
We’re in the clear.” Fell set a small pile of papers on
Lake
’s desk, the only item on the expansive and
empty marble and mahogany desk that looked out of place.
Lake
continued to stare out the huge picture
window of his downtown
Park Avenue
office into the gray steamy overcast. It was already 80 degrees in the city,
and threatening to hit 90-plus with 90-plus-percent humidity—one might actually
be cool and comfortable standing out on a forty-first-story ledge right now,
Fell thought wryly. “You got my notes there on top, but I got a few minutes to
talk about the deal if you—”

 
          
“Who
did the deal?”
Lake
asked. When Fell hesitated that extra
moment,
Lake
replied for him: “Universal. Shit. What’d
you get?” His voice was uncharacteristically uneven, with a trace of his native
New
Jersey
accent mixed in, even after years of trying to excuse it.

 
          
“Universal
Equity offered us ten-point-one percent,” Fell said quickly.

 
          
Lake
irritably rubbed his eyes, moved toward the
papers as if to confirm what Fell said was true, then sat back in his
high-backed black leather chair and continued to stare out the window.

 
          
The
president and founder of Universal Equity Sendees, Limited, based in
Glasgow
,
Scotland
, was Brennan McSor- ley, one of the world’s
richest men, owner of the largest nonpublic investment group in the world.
McSorley had his fingers in hundreds of different pies all over the world,
everything from oil and gas to banking to shipping to computers. He and
Lake
, McSorley’s one-time disciple, had done
business many times in the past, although their version of “business” nowadays
was akin to calling the U.S. Civil War a “disagreement.” McSorley was like a
giant stallion to
Lake
’s horsefly—
Lake
could irritate the hell out of McSorley and
his investors, maybe even cause him to stumble or lose control, but
Lake
was small potatoes next to Brennan
McSorley.

 
          
“If
I say no to him now, I’m screwed and he knows it.”
Lake
looked at Fell with an accusing glare. “You
agreed to his terms?”

           
“You have final authority, boss, so
you can say no to the deal,” Fell responded, “but it’s what you wanted, right?
A done deal, in time to pay the account and retain your shares.”

 
          
“You
fucking agreed to pay Brennan McSorley ten- point-one percent, Ted?”

 
          
“No
one else gave you the time of day, Harold. You needed eighteen million dollars
by close of business
today.
If I had
even three days, I could get that for you at eight- point-five. McSorley said
yes right away, and I had to move.”

 
          
“Maybe
you moved a bit too fast.”

 
          
“You
may not like McSorley, boss, but he went to the mat for you this time,” Fell
said. “The money is in escrow, ready to go. McSorley personally guaranteed the
loan, boss, he showed up at the bank
himself
to sign the papers.”

 
          
“He’d
like nothing better than to see me default, the prick,”
Lake
said gloomily. “He’d take great pleasure in
seeing me file for bankruptcy or selling my assets. He’d be first in line to
screw me in bankruptcy court. He probably showed up at the bank to conduct a
news conference, to announce to the whole world what a loser I am.”

 
          
Fell
elected to stay silent, but he reminded himself that
Harold
G.
Lake
knew a lot about screwing someone, whether
it was in court, in the market, or just about any imaginable business or social
setting. Along with many other talents,
Lake
was one of the world’s premier options
traders. His business was enticing other investors to write option deals to buy
or sell their stock. Lake had many ways to sniff out stocks that might come
into play—lack of publicity, no returned phone calls, lots of unusual stock
trading activity by company officers, even when, where, and how the officers
went on vacation. Like a general planning an invasion,
Lake
was a master at setting an objective and
then designing a vast, convoluted, sweeping series of trades to accomplish his
ultimate objective—what he called the “perpetual motion machine.” Create a
series of deals, contracts, and companies whose income and assets always
exceeded the expenses and liabilities. Create a network, an empire, that was
totally self-sufficient, that made contracts with itself, earned money off
itself, paid expenses to itself, owed money to itself. It was a true “money
tree,” the modern-day answer to Midas’s touch of gold.

 
          
Lake
was a master at this kind of deal-making.
After getting an undergraduate degree from Rutgers and an MBA from Harvard,
Lake had spent his early career in middle management with a variety of
companies and brokerage firms specializing in “creative” financing, long-term
corporate debt (junk bonds), and market speculation. In 1980 he joined
Universal Equity Services, where he handled all the real estate acquisitions.
Then, in 1985,
Lake
engineered an insider trading scheme in
which the price was artificially jacked up in a bidding war between Universal
Equity and a company secretly funded by
Lake
.
Lake
was
fired, but his illegal activities were never confirmed by Universal. Since
leaving Universal,
Lake
worked in a variety of financial and stock
trading positions before finally striking out on his own.

 
          
“We’re
still in business, and we’ve got plenty to keep us afloat for months,” Fell
said finally, standing up to
Lake
’s
glare. “Let’s maintain the proper perspective here. Who the hell knew some
nutcase in
San
Francisco
was going to wipe out half of an international airport terminal and
kill five hundred people? Plenty of investors lost big on this one, boss,
including McSorley. It’s a glitch in the market, that’s all. Everyone in that
investment consortium that bailed out on you this morning will be back in a few
weeks, looking for fresh meat. They’ll know they looked bad when they punched,
but they’ll come back because you made it happen. We can soak them when they
come back, too, because they lost face by bailing out on you.”

 
          
Ted
Fell was one of the few people, in fact the only one, who could really talk to
Lake like this. Blunt, no bullshit. But that was because Fell was the best
addition to the organization that
Lake
had
made. He complemented Lake’s own strengths and made up for Lake’s weaknesses in
other areas. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, Fell had
held several positions with large law firms in Albany, Wilmington, and New York
City, most in the areas of finance, insurance, and corporations. Admittedjo the
bar in sixteen states, he was considered a leading authority on corporation
organization—i.e., dummy corporations and offshore shells. He had worked for
Lake since his days at Universal Equity, helping him on his real estate deals
and then unwittingly, and then knowingly, participated as an engineer in the
stock manipulation scheme that had gotten them both fired.

 
          
Lake
wasn’t totally listening to his attorney, but what little that did register in
his head made sense. The terrorist bombing of San Francisco International last
night was an aberration, a total fluke—damn it, it
had
to be, or Lake was
really
sunk. Several hundred persons dead, thousands injured, hundreds of millions in
damage to aircraft and property, and perhaps billions in lost revenues due to
the closing of the airport for perhaps as long as a year.

 
          
A
one-in-a-million occurrence . ..

 
          
But
the damage to Lake’s portfolio was just as devastating, and simply because it
was caused by a random event would not mitigate the damage. Because he rarely
used his own money for most deals, Lake liked trading on the edge, leaving
himself uncovered for short periods of time. One of Lake’s favorite options
trading tactics was writing uncovered put and call options, or “naked options,”
in which he agreed—for a price of course—to buy stocks at a certain price that
he didn’t have the money to buy, or sell stocks that he did not yet own. In
ordinary circumstances, the premiums received for writing such contracts made
the risk well worth it. But if the market takes a nosedive and the contract is
assigned, as it was during the night by some astute overseas investor,
Lake
was obligated to sell his stocks at low
prices or obligated to buy stocks with cash he did not have. In both cases, he
needed cash in a hurry to cover all his contracts.

 
          
Normally,
in case of impending bad financial news, Harold Lake’s overseas brokers usually
executed closing purchase transactions that canceled the more risky uncovered
options before they were assigned, but the sheer speed of the terrorist attack
and the rapid reaction by overseas traders made it impossible. Lake was stuck
holding all the IOUs, and they were all due and payable by close of business,
or he was out of business. The huge drop in price of Lake’s stocks in overseas
trading alone was enough to queer several other deals in which he was involved.
The New York Stock Exchange was not due to open for another three hours, the
Chicago Board of Options Exchange not for four hours, and already Lake had lost
40 percent of his portfolio’s value, much of which had to be covered with cash.
Dozens of nervous overseas investors bailed out on him through the night,
withdrawing money that had been earmarked for scores of other projects—it was a
huge maze of dominoes collapsing as quickly as the sunrise moved across the
planet. Investors heard of the awful terrorist bombing, took defensive cash-saving
positions, and left speculators like Lake sucking wind. Borrowing the money to
make up for the losses and to continue his current obligations only prolonged
the inevitable. Eighteen million dollars wouldn’t last Lake two months, even at
zero-percent interest, let alone at an exorbitant 10 percent. Foreclosures and
bankruptcy were inevitable.